tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-320236122024-03-13T07:57:29.291+00:00Regency RosesThoughts on writing, life in England, and anything else that takes my fancy.Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-34925935598951566662011-11-04T11:20:00.006+00:002011-11-04T11:38:31.591+00:00Authorial Self-Confidence (Part 1) or Why writers are a little crazy (it's the voices in our heads)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiurfIgHMfEFy8drySzReUsVX-rYD3GTu8zppx-4dmwNuAaEpnG2q4g06SSXzBXbrlpCow34TpqPHCJfHUayNaeLKj_yMTyABhVM89J3SkbQABiKqQ8MUUdKG52flP8szisa2yYBw/s1600/IMG00045-20111104-1107.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiurfIgHMfEFy8drySzReUsVX-rYD3GTu8zppx-4dmwNuAaEpnG2q4g06SSXzBXbrlpCow34TpqPHCJfHUayNaeLKj_yMTyABhVM89J3SkbQABiKqQ8MUUdKG52flP8szisa2yYBw/s320/IMG00045-20111104-1107.jpg" border="0" height="240" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">Today I want to write about something which is all tangled up with who I am as a writer and which is, I think, intrinsic to the writing process: authorial self-confidence.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">Even as I write this, I look at that statement: ‘authorial self-confidence’. In my head, this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sounds </i>like what I mean, but is it technically correct? There is a little flag in the back of my mind which is suggesting that ‘authorial confidence’ would usually be used within a stylistic context, to denote a particularly deftly managed voice for example. Someone cleverer than I am, more <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">learned</i> than I am, will pick this up in a heartbeat. For that matter, ‘in a heartbeat’ is clearly a cliché. What does it say about me as a writer that I have resorted to this over-used phrase rather than a fresh, new metaphor? And this is exactly what I mean. As writers, we become hyperaware of the words that we use and the way that they will be received by others. This can come to the point where you are afraid to write anything at all.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">One of my tutors once said that to make it as a writer, you need an equal balance of arrogance and humility. There is a lot of truth to this, although I wince at the suggestion that arrogance among writers is something to be condoned, is even an essential part of the writing process. Replacing ‘arrogance’ with ‘self-belief’, however, describes in my view exactly the weird dichotomy that both plagues and strengthens most writers. To be a writer, you have to get this balance right or, forgive the dramatic but I think it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">true</i>, it destroys you.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">The humility is vitally important and is part, I think, of a constant desire to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">learn</i>, to understand better and deeper the complexities and contradictions of the world around us, the things that have happened and the things that might happen. To ask ‘what if?’ or ‘why?’ requires both humility and determination: ‘I don’t know the answer, but I am going to write to find out, for myself, and so I can share what I’ve learned with you.’ Writing isn’t for me a matter of saying ‘look how much I know, now I’m going to teach you, lucky reader’ but ‘look we’re asking the same questions, and I’ve devoted a lot of time and effort to finding my own version of an answer, so please, have a look and see whether this resonates with you too.’</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">Along with this, humility pushes the necessary constant drive to be better than you are. If you believe that every word you write is perfect as it is, that stories fly fully formed from the genius of your brain to the page, that criticism is just from people who ‘don’t get it’ and that’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">their </i>fault, not yours, you’ll stick forever in stasis. You won’t improve because you don’t believe that you need improving and, 99.9% of the time, that’s wrong. Part of the transformative nature of writing is the moment when this thing you’ve written suddenly pulls together into the thing you hoped it might be able to be. And that’s rarely ever in the first draft.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">This is where the self-belief comes in. Some people come to writing as a vocation quite late, but I am one of those who believed in me as a writer almost before I could actually write. One of my clearest early childhood memories is of standing beside my dad’s chair at the kitchen table, dictating a story and making him write it down. I’m not one of those naturally gifted with telling stories in public, to a crowd, but I was always compulsively driven to write them. And for the twenty or so years since that moment when I thought to myself ‘I am a writer, this is what I want to do with my life’, that inherent self-belief has been consistently and thoroughly battered.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">And it has to be, that’s part of the process. Because being a writer is a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">public </i>process, it involves constantly and relentlessly putting yourself and your precious work out into the world and, particularly I think if you are a creative writing student, putting yourself out there sometimes when you know you’re not ready. The self-belief is the little voice, buried rather deeply in a lot of us, which whispers ‘You are good at this. This piece of work may not be perfect – even if you thought it was and have just realised it isn’t – but you are capable of something really good. You know your craft, whatever anyone might say, and you can do this.’ This last bit is important and sometimes overlooked by beginning writers, you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do </i>have to get to a point where that is part of the self-belief voice, where the basics of how to tell a story well are both instinctive and understood.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">The self-belief voice, in a lot of us, is a quiet one and it suffers under a mind-battering barrage of much louder self-doubt voices which, on a bad day, judge and analyse every word and every comment and take every criticism to heart. These are the opposite of arrogance, they are the crippling self-doubt which means that every single time someone ‘doesn’t get it’ it is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">always</i> your fault not theirs. It’s the part of you which keeps saying, very reasonably, lining up lots of evidence for your perusal, that you’re deluding yourself if you think that perhaps, in this case, your story just hasn’t worked for that person. This self-doubt voice tells you that you’re just like those arrogant people who think they’re perfect – you just don’t want to accept the truth that you’re not good enough.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">I will, on this blog and elsewhere, talk confidently about my writing process, myself as a writer, etc. The writing self-belief voice is quiet but pretty strong in me, mainly because it’s been there for a long time, it’s been tested harshly and just managed to survive so far. But that self-doubt voice is, if anything, even a little bit stronger, always at least jostling confidently for space, and it threatens to obliterate every shred of self-belief every single day. I won’t talk about it too often here for that reason – giving it too much blog-space isn’t interesting to anyone else but is also one of the surest ways to kill the self-belief.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">I am aware that all of the above may sound a bit mixed up and contradictory and confusing and consist of lots of run-on sentences full of ‘ands’ like this one. But that’s what it’s like – in my head anyway. Being a writer for me is not just about putting the words on the page, it’s about constantly managing that conflict between self-belief and self-doubt every day, subduing it enough to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">allow </i>me to put the words on the page.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What do you think? Does anyone else have the same experience (or am I just crazy – I am aware this is a real possibility)? How does this self-confidence war manifest itself in other art forms?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">In a follow-up post, maybe next week, I want to talk about this conflict in the context of formal creative writing study, in particular this idea of presenting your work for judgment when you know that it and you aren’t ready. I should be posting to this blog much more often (I know I always say that) over the coming months – I will tell you why next time!</div>Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-42125672941777556652011-06-01T17:46:00.003+01:002011-06-01T18:09:43.297+01:00Feminine girls in YA fantasy, or Adventuring in skirts is fun too<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-wUiGu7eZIUB2C3kQCubnuKXIbGO4UhRLcWpDRfkOnT1oExbFL6XZiNFc_ltoo3STbMWOBYtScdGCQ129mW2tqqRXEFr1N_7VE1_C33ECVi_0xFQawCb1nMfAEdQeIk4VvxAtXA/s1600/247189_634748369875_285401018_5602127_29437_n.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-wUiGu7eZIUB2C3kQCubnuKXIbGO4UhRLcWpDRfkOnT1oExbFL6XZiNFc_ltoo3STbMWOBYtScdGCQ129mW2tqqRXEFr1N_7VE1_C33ECVi_0xFQawCb1nMfAEdQeIk4VvxAtXA/s320/247189_634748369875_285401018_5602127_29437_n.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613299668930367586" border="0" /></a><br />On the lovely bank holiday, I was confined to the house on a writing mission, doing edits on my second complete chapter (a topic for another post: how my ideas about ‘process’ may be completely wrong) and I made a minor change that felt major. I took Nessa out of her jeans and put her in a lacy dress and leggings instead.<br /><br />Okay, that doesn’t sound like much of a change. I had to remove a good bit, I thought, because Nessa wakes from a bewitched sleep, still clothed, and I had a moment where she notices the reddened crease at her waist and the imprint of the button on her stomach. Anyone who has lain down for a moment and woken up hours later knows what I’m talking about – and lovely elasticated leggings do not have the same effect. In the end, I gave her a belt too, so I could have the crease and the dig, the moment was worth saving for the effect.<br /><br />But it got me thinking because of why I made the change. Suddenly, having changed Nessa’s clothes, I changed her and she came clear in my head in a way she hadn’t before. I had automatically put her in jeans – all teenagers wear jeans, I thought, it’s the default – but when I thought about it that wasn’t true, at least not in England these days. Waiting daily on the train platform with a crowd of teenagers on their way to college (Americans: translate to senior high) in town told me that. So that was part of why I changed her, the sort of girl that I thought Nessa was wouldn’t necessarily have gone for the easy, comfortable, <span style="font-style:italic;">practical </span>option to wear to college. She hadn't woken up intending to go adventuring.<br /><br />I came of age in an era when YA fantasy authors writing about girls that did things were really coming into their own. Robin McKinley’s <span style="font-style:italic;">The Blue Sword </span>and <span style="font-style:italic;">The Hero and the Crown </span>were among the first (and already well-established when I was an adolescent). In her blog and on her website, McKinley often talks about her frustration with all the books she read as a child where boys got to go out and have adventures. She wanted those adventures too and there was no female equivalent to live vicariously through. So she had to make them up.<br /><br />The same I think applies to Tamora Pierce, whose Alanna books were for me, and a whole generation of girls my age, the first ‘YA’ fantasy books about girls that do things that we read. I use the ‘YA’ term advisedly – there was a frisson of sexuality in the Alanna books that made them something different to the ‘children’s’ books we’d read before. Alanna was the ultimate girl who does things: she wants to be a knight so disguises herself as a boy, and becomes one.<br /><br />I <span style="font-style:italic;">loved </span>these books. The thing is, though, I didn’t want to be these girls. I didn’t want to be Harry in <span style="font-style:italic;">The Blue Sword </span>or Alanna. I wanted to be their friend definitely, I wanted to be the girl who lived next door in the dormitory, the quieter softer one. I still wanted the romance, I even wanted the adventure, but I didn’t really see the great appeal of being a warrior. A strong empowered woman, yes, but I didn’t fancy riding off into the sunset with a sword strapped at my hip.<br /><br />I wasn’t in any sense a tomboy – McKinley says some <a href="http://robinmckinleysblog.com/2011/04/16/being-a-girl/">interesting things </a>about this on her blog – and I didn’t want to be one. I didn’t envy boys their freedom, perhaps because I genuinely felt that my 80’s and 90’s childhood was free of many of the constraints that had plagued my mother’s generation which includes writers like Pierce and McKinley. And it was people like my mum, and these writers, that made it that way.<br /><br />This is not to say that Pierce and McKinley don’t write girly girls too – Pierce’s Sandry in <span style="font-style:italic;">The Circle of Magic </span>series is an excellent case in point. Magic needlework is totally up my street. I don’t want to see a return to the passive heroines of the past – and I have concerns with some of the recent YA paranormal fantasy/romance trend that we’re slipping that way, into a frightening world of controlling tortured boyfriends and passive helpless girls. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011jrhf">Radio 4’s ‘All in the Mind</a>’ last night looked at a recent and disturbing study of violence in teenage relationships, picking out in particular the way in which mobile phones and social networks mean controlling (often older – though not centurhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifies older) boyfriends can expect to keep tabs on their girlfriends wherever they are. And these girls think that this is what it’s meant to be like – it’s this disturbing equation of love with obsession, and helplessness.<br /><br />Anyway, my point is that we don’t want a return to or development into this. But, girly things are fun! I love making things, knitting, sewing, creating something beautiful out of nothing. Beautiful clothes, beautiful things, flowers and music and romance. There's something magic about all of this and girls who aren't physically strong (and don't yearn to be) are okay too.<br /><br />Feminine girls can be incredibly emotionally strong and can be heroes. My heroine Nessa is an ordinary teenager – she is semi-popular, she tries to fit in, she wears pretty clothes and used to dream of being a ballet dancer. She is deeply vulnerable – and I do think that this is part of a certain feminine psyche, and it is an important part of her. If she didn’t have the life experience she does, she could have turned into one of those trapped teenage girls in the Radio 4 programme. But part of what makes her a hero and an emotionally strong one, is her deep bond with her physically disabled mother and the way in which she deals with her mother’s injury, has helped create a ‘normal’ life for her out of chaos and fear. She stands up for what she believes in, and she fights for it, she single-handedly – young, a little shy, small – holds everything together, without a sword. Of course, she beats the monsters too, and bravely.<br /><br />(Just a note: one of the real great heroines of Spenser’s Faerie Queene is Britomart, a lady knight of the Alanna school, so I’ll get my female warrior fix in all its glory a few books on…)<br /><br />On another but related note, I found <a href="http://www.thebihttp//www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifgthrill.org/2011/05/coming-may-23rd-to-the-29th-what-is-the-one-thing-authors-can-do-to-help-make-you-and-ultimately-themselves-more-successful/">this round table of agent advice</a> for thriller writers (not my area of course, but interesting) quite upsetting and odd because of agent Debbie Carter's recommendations. She specifically recommends that writers avoid writing stories 'where the hero or heroine is in a job we don't associate with their gender, like a man working as a stylist in the fashion industry or a female drummer in a rock band.' I am tempted to keep quoting from the article but I suggest you read it for yourself - let me know what you think.Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-67645919341172868162011-05-30T21:43:00.003+01:002011-05-30T21:47:13.934+01:00In which I return to Blogland, refreshed - or avowal of new direction of blog in one post only<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">I did not mean to desert you, my dear friends who still faithfully check in, in the hopes that I might have something to say to you.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here, I have returned! I shall tell you of my adventures – such as they are. I am returned for good partly because I am writing away at what my educational establishment would call my ‘Masters dissertation’ and what I would call ‘my greatly enjoyable YA fantasy novel filled with lots of fun and exciting things’. I wish to tell you about it, and I hope that someday it will become a real book and you will love it and me already and so buy it immediately, with great joy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My current work-in-progress will be herein referred to as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">FQ </i>because that’s what I call it, unoriginally, as it is a modern YA fantasy reimagining of Edmund Spenser’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Faerie Queene</i>, an epic Arthurian-styled Elizabethan poem. Note, if you are not familiar with Spenser, that I really do mean epic – my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">FQ </i>is based on just one of the ‘books’ of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Faerie Queene </i>and is intended to be the first in a 6-7 book series. My story is set in modern-day Devon, England and it stars teenagers Nessa Goldsmith and Christopher Crosse who set out on a quest to rescue Nessa’s disabled mother who has disappeared. But it is also about loyalty and betrayal, trust, deception and delusion, all of which are vital themes in Book 1 of Spenser’s original.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It also has monsters in the living room, ogres on the moor, human villains and ordinary people in conflict. I have drawn much on Spenser’s original, purposefully, and I hope that the story will reflect enough of this to show my debt. At the same time, I have twisted, updated and refashioned the characters and plot points of the original until they are entirely my own, and I have very much my own story to tell.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m not going to tell you an awful lot about it now as it is in early stages – only two chapters written but they’re long ones. You will hear more, I promise!<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Over the next few months, this blog will meander through the following areas:</p> <ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Writing posts: </b>Writing this book (and the dilemmas and struggles which go with it – and may be just me, or may be universal)</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Reading</b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"> posts: </b>Yes, reading Holly Black and Robin McKinley is research in Creative Writing MA-land, and excellent research it is too. I shall give you reviews and musings. </li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Research posts:</b> This<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"> </b>might be bits of my exciting research into Spenser, allegory, and the great tome that is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Faerie Queene</i>, it might also be more general writing posts, or about genre and the current world of YA fantasy</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Other things!: </b>Because I cannot write all the time. I must go to work (we shall avoid this topic where possible), I must knit (we shall not avoid this topic), I must watch television. I must even know about the news and current affairs. I reserve the right to discuss these things unreservedly.<br /></li></ul> <p class="MsoNormal">I expect the above to continue, wide-ranging and all-encompassing as it is, but most excitingly it looks likely that I shall be commencing an even more enticing project this October. Still semi-secret but think: Regency romance meets the Arabian Nights meets lots and lots of magic! Stay tuned.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is an explaining sort of post – next ones will be more interesting, and more fun. To end:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> FQ Word Count: <img src="http://picometer.writertopia.com/words=11948&target=70000"><code><code></code></code></p><code> </code>Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-20660868414413244672010-11-03T14:33:00.002+00:002010-11-03T14:37:07.790+00:00In which I commit to 500 words a day regardless of procrastination<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj36X3c6kDIicumkydU2mIrFb23LosbVCkrp4ypX9MYzzn5JuNrNqZLX3G5N96h-QPt4KHHy-EdrCA07Dl3CHoymcV8dCxnN2IKUQCyp1szmoFpxkAnprgO3iI-NojRRDJmxmsapw/s1600/Picture+109.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj36X3c6kDIicumkydU2mIrFb23LosbVCkrp4ypX9MYzzn5JuNrNqZLX3G5N96h-QPt4KHHy-EdrCA07Dl3CHoymcV8dCxnN2IKUQCyp1szmoFpxkAnprgO3iI-NojRRDJmxmsapw/s320/Picture+109.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535332340510921458" border="0" /></a><p class="MsoNormal">This is a picture of Scotland – how I spent my summer holidays in other words. Rain and grey skies and long walks by the lochs as the sun peeked (or not) through the clouds (and one long walk/climb/soul-destroy-and-repair-maneuver up a tall tall mountain in full sunlight). Also an eerie half-light that seemed to linger all night so that you could look up from your computer (writing/Plants vs. Zombies is the best reward) at one in the morning and a timelessness had set in, a Tom’s Midnight Garden sort of moment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, I also wrote 17,000 words of new novel which is not about Scotland but came out of a feeling in Scotland and a rather dull dream that I had just before we went but a couple of images stuck with me: an awkward but sublimely confident everyday girl in a shift dress, perched on the edge of a table in an anachronistic aristocratic household, a young man, a bit older, in evening dress, chairs tipped over but a sense of calm.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I write often from atmosphere, I think – I want to write a book that <i style="">feels </i>like this I often say to myself, the visceral is awfully important to me – I’ll close my eyes and try and sense the scene with all senses. Atmosphere, however, does <i style="">not </i>a story make, certainly not a YA novel. Characters come naturally to me but <i style="">plot, oh plot my greatest enemy</i>… But this book has a plot! It is more than characters perched on the edge of tables and chairs, it is buried treasure and political intrigue and fraud and great family secrets and a dash of romance and a dash of the sea. The plot is written!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">On return from my two week July jaunt to the Highlands and Islands, I resolved to finish my novel, uninspiredly titled <i style="">Shena and Robbie, </i>now rather pompously titled <i style="">Grandings</i> (to change, I’m sure) by the end of the summer. It is now the beginning of November, and my grand total stands at 26,000 words. Not the record I might have hoped for. 9,000 words in three months is not something to be proud of.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">But I shall be proud! For from now on, I have a goal of 500 words a day. There was this goal last week too and perhaps the week before, and it ended in failure. But not this time! For it has been proclaimed into Blogland and must be so.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I was going to tell you my ten tips for procrastinating when you have carefully set aside a day for writing and it is now 14:29 and not a word has been written. These included ‘Computer battery has run down. Computer charger is plugged in behind the sofa. The sofa is <i style="">not </i>the place to be for writing this afternoon’ and ‘Reading other writers’ blogs is almost as good as writing’ or even ‘my husband asked me to load the dishwasher and put the washing on the line – if I’ve done this, maybe I won’t get told off for having done no writing on my writing day…’</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">But I shall not do this! For writing blog posts must make the list of great procrastinations… I will, however, update you to confirm my measly 500 words, and you, I hope, will applaud loudly.</p>Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-69564817607127009512010-09-06T18:06:00.001+01:002010-09-06T18:06:09.045+01:00Test Poem<span xmlns=''><p><br /> </p><p>This is just to see<br /></p><p>if Word 2007 really posts to my blog<br /></p><p>like it says it does.<br /></p><p>Forgive me<br /></p><p>it is just an experiment,<br /></p><p>more detail soon.</p></span>Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-77218873857171672412009-09-19T20:59:00.006+01:002009-09-19T21:12:40.365+01:00Nature - or why I will never make a nature-poet which has never saddened me until now<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8XTL4XC3Q1hyphenhyphenIcOu0tkgG0qLQmf-lYw7H8b93Xn1JJUlxKAX3hOjAesKw3foktxzt8p7kJHex80IpCD-a564ErZ_23z4mjL86ov-NbKi5fTWsUphbyfPr4JaAt-nIT9sB7bVCFA/s1600-h/cornwall+picture.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5383272523502162610" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8XTL4XC3Q1hyphenhyphenIcOu0tkgG0qLQmf-lYw7H8b93Xn1JJUlxKAX3hOjAesKw3foktxzt8p7kJHex80IpCD-a564ErZ_23z4mjL86ov-NbKi5fTWsUphbyfPr4JaAt-nIT9sB7bVCFA/s320/cornwall+picture.jpg" /></a><br /><div></div><div></div><div>I first studied writing, seriously, in the woods, surrounded on either side by lakes. My writing teachers were brilliant nature poets and essayists, they wrote the poetic twists and turns of streams and the complex balancing act that is man in nature, man outside nature, man against nature. We read everyone from Gary Snyder to Jim Harrison to Mary Oliver, all writers in their way firmly connected to a wild outdoor environment.<br /></div><br /><div>To be honest, I got my fill of nature-writing then and there. It was something that I remembered nostalgically, as a relic from my relatively happy and intensely creative schooldays, but a habit that I never picked up.<br /></div><br /><div>For one thing, I am terribly unobservant when it comes to the natural world, to the point where I have sometimes worried about how anyone so obviously unobservant can ever claim to be a writer. In the Alps, bravely soldiering up mountains, I missed eagles, marmots and interestingly-shaped clouds even when given minute directions ('you see that peak over there behind the fir tree... no?). Recently, I have been trying to rectify my abysmal knowledge of trees and flowers on the basis that specificity in writing is important when setting a scene and that the lovely heroine leaning against a silver birch twirling a crimson crysanthemum while waiting for her lover is a more evocative scene then, say, the girl sat under a tree holding a flower. I've made an effort to learn the leaves and bark of the basics - oaks, beeches, horse chestnut, the most confusing rowan and mountain ash. I am ashamed, however, to admit that so far I can only identify by cheating: if it has acorns, or prickly conker shells, I can manage, otherwise they mix themselves up in my head. I can give you a list of trees, and I can see a tree and know that it is familiar, but never do these two trains of thought end up on the same bit of track.<br /></div><br /><div>This has all come about because, after gleefully abandoning reading about nature throughout my undergraduate degree, I have plunged myself into a creative writing MA that starts off with three books about the natural world and the wider concept of wilderness and wildness. Beautifully written, intensely thoughtful and perceptive, this is personal creative nonfiction that seems to test all of my reading abilities. Normally a fast reader, even in study mode, it's taken me weeks to get through the first one and a half books. My mind drifts in the spaces between paragraphs, a philosophical point will send me off on a tangent that brings me back two or three pages later when I realise I haven't taken in a word. The effort of concentration has put me to sleep more than once. It is incredibly frustrating - today, I read a few pages of Robert Macfarlane's <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wild-Places-Robert-Macfarlane/dp/1847080189/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253391052&sr=1-1">The Wild Places </a>aloud to focus my thoughts and I was impressed by the sheer brilliance and rightness of the language, the description of Irish limestone as coated in pewter, the red berries against white snow in a Scottish forest. It is a beautiful book and Macfarlane has much wider messages about our relationship to nature and our very understanding of the wild places in the world. But I miss so much, seemingly inadvertently, me who can reel off characters and plots and family relationships from books I read years ago.<br /></div><br /><div>I think perhaps that it is because I feel an outsider in this world. I want desperately to understand this relationship with the natural world, this feeling of seeing it from the inside out. I go lightheaded in the outdoors - last weekend, dead-tired after endless days at work, I spent a few hours outside in unusually glorious English sunshine in my in-laws' garden a steep hill overflowing with colour and steps made of slate. I lay in the hammock, half-aware of bird song, with my sunglasses, reading Annie Dillard's <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pilgrim-Tinker-Harper-Perrennial-Classics/dp/0061233323/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253390980&sr=8-2">Pilgrim at Tinker Creek</a>, a densely exuberant exploration of a year at the author's Virginia home. Dillard muses passionately on everything from the lifecycles of cicadas to the sheer fecundity of nature to the experience of patting a dog at a gas station. She writes with wonder and both an intensity of focus and a lightspeed zoom outwards looking at the natural world from all angles and all distances.<br /></div><br /><div>The sun often affects me strangely, and that afternoon I tried to absorb bits of Tinker Creek in a daze. I spent hours outdoors and I could not tell you what flowers I saw, what birds I heard, or really what words I read. I have a vision of it, vague, powerful and lightheaded with a sunstruck headache. I deeply admire this writing, this sort of depth of understanding, of seeing a tree and recognising it not just for its name but also for its mechanics and its cycle through the seasons. I blame, perhaps, my abysmal scientific education, but this all comes back to the same problem - the science I learned didn't stick.<br /></div><br /><div>I don't want to sell myself too short. When I stand on one of the Dartmoor tors (that expanse of moorland wilderness is something for another entry, the openess that I miss crammed in between hedgerows, that ability to breathe that you don't always know you've lost) or smell the salt of the sea when the waves hit the side of my train to work in the morning, I want desperately to write it, to capture the feeling of that breath, that wildness, what it means to be a person in that world. I want that Anne Hathaway rose-covered cottage in the country, I get absurdly excited when my tomato plants bear fruit. But I find an allure to nature mainly as setting, almost a persistent anthropomorphic backdrop, as the Yorkshire moors are to Heathcliff and Cathy or, conversely, to little Mary Lennox with her secret garden. I think, for me, it's the natural world as metaphor and as atmosphere that interests me most, and it depresses me that I can't seem to appreciate a world without characters.<br /></div><br /><div>Jay Griffith's <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wild-Elemental-Journey-Jay-Griffiths/dp/0141006447/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253391101&sr=1-1">Wild</a> is proving the easiest read for me although it's possibly the most complex of the three in many ways. It's because, sad as it is to admit it, it's scattered throughout with people that I can latch onto, people as reference points for the wild, and people are something I feel I can understand.<br /></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">*Notice the abandon with which this entry is written however - perhaps a bit of this joy in the world, this intense way of seeing, this unselfconscious wonder has started to rub off after all.</span></div>Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-34564297597408925602009-07-15T22:00:00.000+01:002009-07-16T10:36:24.093+01:00Pasta e Fagioli - or soup is the ultimate comfort food in the rain<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWaxWW4cutnjLp6gP-fhMmhzNXbCFe2O2cK7zHueMOpkaaeTfOOH1gLbJ_-NcMo2ANjiF8oSnmnUT_6zy6nBoeEIPPKZLsT3BJKl1rsw77bF6TEy1bN0sEFtvjZrB60J61iXKqTw/s1600-h/Knitting+Pictures+017.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWaxWW4cutnjLp6gP-fhMmhzNXbCFe2O2cK7zHueMOpkaaeTfOOH1gLbJ_-NcMo2ANjiF8oSnmnUT_6zy6nBoeEIPPKZLsT3BJKl1rsw77bF6TEy1bN0sEFtvjZrB60J61iXKqTw/s320/Knitting+Pictures+017.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358987328971105698" border="0" /></a><br />Rain has returned to England after that unusually glorious June. Although there was sunshine in the afternoon yesterday, it felt very much a temporary reprieve.<br /><br />It was therefore time for a comforting homemade soup. I am not an experienced gardener but Simon and I have gone a bit wild with growing vegetables in pots on our small patio and we had home-grown courgette (zucchini), purple French beans (were they meant to be purple?), tiny mutated carrots that looked like curled-up shellfish, and young ruby chard that could all be chopped and simmered with store-bought onion, garlic, tinned tomatoes, basil and oregano. Near the end, I added a tin of cannellini beans and a big scoop of (gluten-free) macaroni.<br /><br />Serve with a dollop of pesto, lots and lots of grated parmesan, bread (real or not) and a glass of white wine. I dressed for dinner and Simon wore a suit as he'd just come in from his first day in his new job.<br /><br />Pasta and bean soup has always been one of my favourites since I used to beg my mom to buy Progresso Macaroni and Bean at the one shop that carried it. I used to sit at the kitchen table with my book, a big bowl of steaming soup, and potato chips (crisps to the Brits.)<br /><br />When I was a young teenager, I saw Rachael Ray make her own version on 30-Minute Meals and it was one of the first dishes I cooked (successfully) for my family. My current recipe is still based on hers.<br /><br />I loved it so much that I wrote a story called Sapphire Skies Over Milan with 'Pasta e Fagioli' as it's called by the Italians as a central theme. This story got me a first place win at A.R.T.S. and $3000. Until recently, you could still find it on the NFAA website, but I can't find it now. (As a side note, in searching for it, I was slightly concerned by <a href="http://www.rockvillemd.gov/residents/rockvillereports/2006/focus-0406.pdf">this newsletter</a> which lists a student winning a short story contest the year after with a story of exactly the same name! Am I paranoid to find this a little suspicious?)<br /><br />Anyway, a taste of the summer harvest and a comfort in the rain. Could you get any better?Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-31333285525868880102009-02-08T12:21:00.007+00:002009-02-08T12:35:43.453+00:00Rowan 44 - or here goes the overdraftI have succumbed. I tried not to, for about half an hour, because the resolve to be very frugal in this short month of February was still new and the water and phone bills were still fresh frightening numbers in my mind. Christmas was expensive, the overdraft has not yet recovered and there are things like food and train fares still to buy.<br /><br />But I fell in love, so I have bought this:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.knitrowan.com/magazine/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 244px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheLeYmEBoN1n6-a_h9I4YxhChM3Wt1CgILSCrCSyGUCZdnAKade96bEWWk78E_eoHGTzCA5BVB_BAwyau8Zkqjl8hPGTDAOLrk5trAaqpwX3jSl7-YXrF70YqmjwnRYyhTW0fVtw/s320/p00.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300400998264652146" border="0" /></a><br />I know that the strange dread-locked girl in loose intarsia oddly-coloured garb may put you off. When you look more closely and find out that this is actually a knitting magazine and it cost me £10.95 (+£3 shipping), you may sigh and close your browser window and refuse to grace the pages of my blog with your presence again.<br /><br />Before you do, however, please please hear me out. The magazine has over 60 patterns in it, so it’s actually not bad value for money (although of course they are counting on you having to buy the exorbitantly priced but exquisitely beautiful yarn to actually complete the projects.) Not only that, but Rowan magazines are always divided into 3 different ‘stories’ and the Renaissance story (yes, bizarre colourful hippy dread-locked girl) is just one of them.<br /><br />It is the Nostalgia ‘story’ that convinced me I needed this magazine (more of a book really, if we’re going to be honest.) All of the patterns in this ‘story’ are named after 30’s and 40’s movie stars with an elegant vintage style. I know that Rowan is costly but I love it because their designs are actually incredibly stylish and wearable, clothes I would actually pay good money for in a shop. And that’s really the only sort of project that I’m willing to spend my money and my hard-earned free time working on. I want to make something that I’ll be proud to wear – and proud to say I made.<br /><br />I’ve already ordered the yarn for my first project (the book hasn’t even come yet), the Bacall shrug because it looks fairly simple, and only requires a few balls of yarn:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8C1FrpuqNYWor9EWt8YlZ6KM2Gy8L-KU6_zVw1BJHm-mWLNnKR8th1suDm4X7BMhZi4DjRbnjReY_lRTjhXNqnN5w_b2ON_GPwYYMOZSAiqeHEYUAr5UN4SWHYXApVb0bK7nagQ/s1600-h/Rowan+Mag+44+Nostalgia+Bacall.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8C1FrpuqNYWor9EWt8YlZ6KM2Gy8L-KU6_zVw1BJHm-mWLNnKR8th1suDm4X7BMhZi4DjRbnjReY_lRTjhXNqnN5w_b2ON_GPwYYMOZSAiqeHEYUAr5UN4SWHYXApVb0bK7nagQ/s320/Rowan+Mag+44+Nostalgia+Bacall.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300401334451952274" border="0" /></a><bacall pic=""><br />I’m doing it in Rowan Kid Classic (as recommended by the pattern) in <a href="http://www.jannettesrareyarns.co.uk/rowan-kid-classic-crystal-17065-p.asp">Crystal</a>, a discontinued silvery grey that I’ve managed to find a few balls of on the internet. I’ve not got a good yarn shop nearby (oh, I miss my <a href="http://www.johnlewis.com/">John Lewis</a> haberdashery section in Norwich – I used to spend hours there) and as this colour is discontinued, I probably wouldn’t have been able to look at a sample anyway. I’m hoping that it will go with my black Jane Norman dress with the silver beading, and possibly my red dress as well. I should also be able to wear it over black tops to work, but we’ll have to see how it actually fits when it’s done.<br /><br />If all goes well, I think I may try this one next, the Grable Sweater, and I may go all out and do the Lamarr gloves as well because I think they’re so pretty:<br /><grable lamarr="" pic=""><br /></grable></bacall><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkQHCN9DmQZta8OByhmg9VCmmf-4pbX8Cfr8HyjBRJnfrd8qoIWGKuR8nj4rFhzuG7jokQyxhnA7AjWOVOF1XwVpN83mBDRmCW4CoiW71lCneLLfFOo9UGDel4RHe60usgBGZ6zA/s1600-h/Rowan+Mag+44+Nostalgia+Grable.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkQHCN9DmQZta8OByhmg9VCmmf-4pbX8Cfr8HyjBRJnfrd8qoIWGKuR8nj4rFhzuG7jokQyxhnA7AjWOVOF1XwVpN83mBDRmCW4CoiW71lCneLLfFOo9UGDel4RHe60usgBGZ6zA/s320/Rowan+Mag+44+Nostalgia+Grable.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300402359015414434" border="0" /></a><bacall pic=""><grable lamarr="" pic=""><br />I’m not a fan of the colour in this picture, particularly on me, but I’m thinking it might turn out quite nicely in a dark red like this:<br /><br /></grable></bacall><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLNaKa7J0tiEPzVokUBb0uQFCG1iJobVC90hZDhEIMtwBYF957aHvvi6XhdanU8eGLH3LdK-Kf8W5qLspnI8NaEJGDKXglJoWDZa7NplovOp6SJEPDQt6zY4QuNFbYqiOgA7qH6A/s1600-h/big_12-+++825+Crushed+velvet.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLNaKa7J0tiEPzVokUBb0uQFCG1iJobVC90hZDhEIMtwBYF957aHvvi6XhdanU8eGLH3LdK-Kf8W5qLspnI8NaEJGDKXglJoWDZa7NplovOp6SJEPDQt6zY4QuNFbYqiOgA7qH6A/s200/big_12-+++825+Crushed+velvet.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300403338406912834" border="0" /></a><bacall pic=""><grable lamarr="" pic=""><red yarn="" pic="">Finally, if I find that I can manage those, I may take the plunge with the Fontaine jacket, which is the one I really want, knitted on tiny needles with complex shaping, really a labour of love that I’m not sure I’m ready for. This picture doesn’t do it justice:<br /><br /><fontaine picture=""></fontaine></red></grable></bacall><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXYO29DbVMOG04ydvSlMtNS44WFOpNfORWawAi85I2mZb2wOksCVwTpNY6sKb6DszIuLzI0Jek_rz6rKO3wc7NGD7DscgiuJMHEb0pWtRLVTeAGdH0vcA77xPh3PeB_3yuxRx0tg/s1600-h/Fontaine-3_L.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXYO29DbVMOG04ydvSlMtNS44WFOpNfORWawAi85I2mZb2wOksCVwTpNY6sKb6DszIuLzI0Jek_rz6rKO3wc7NGD7DscgiuJMHEb0pWtRLVTeAGdH0vcA77xPh3PeB_3yuxRx0tg/s320/Fontaine-3_L.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300402358863656914" border="0" /></a><bacall pic=""><grable lamarr="" pic=""><red yarn="" pic=""><fontaine picture=""><br />Loads of other projects I’d like to try, although possibly not for myself. This collection reminds me so strongly of my sister that we may partner up to do a sisterly project for her, and one of these sweaters would be lovely for my mother-in-law. But first things first… my husband needs to finish his studies and start work this summer before I can really contemplate any massive Rowan wool expenditure.<br /><br />Wish me luck! There, knitting done for the time being – but expect a report in a week or so when I’ve got my yarn and my book and have taken a stab at the Bacall. Now, off to watch some Cary Grant (the real one, not a sweater), keep working on the never-ending but excellent for TV-watching blanket, and avoiding writing with a rubbish cold.<br /></fontaine></red></grable></bacall>Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-1648986424747114092009-01-28T12:19:00.006+00:002009-01-28T17:36:20.783+00:00Review: House of Many Ways - or why I adore Diana Wynne Jones but not this book...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnyVG9oZWa7w38p2na1ipCzs3lfgcZgniv9yjv0vHWWmvNwoKojCwcwxCGZLT_9LKjJwhzHB7oTANZrYfWP04xCHuVEKEmd_c0Erl0Q6nQ164I2-fWea1f_oApeB5BGWRjTzybkg/s1600-h/311ODqXY%252BGL._SL500_AA180_"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 180px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnyVG9oZWa7w38p2na1ipCzs3lfgcZgniv9yjv0vHWWmvNwoKojCwcwxCGZLT_9LKjJwhzHB7oTANZrYfWP04xCHuVEKEmd_c0Erl0Q6nQ164I2-fWea1f_oApeB5BGWRjTzybkg/s320/311ODqXY%252BGL._SL500_AA180_" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296399738369482066" border="0" /></a><br />Among my birthday presents were a whole horde of children's books - beautiful editions of favourites from my childhood and new children's fantasy novels that I've been wanting to read (all in the name of research, I tell people - so not true.) Here's my take on one of those.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Many-Diana-Wynne-Jones/dp/0007275668/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233145410&sr=8-2"><span style="font-weight: bold;">House of Many Ways</span>,</a> by <a href="http://www.leemac.freeserve.co.uk/">Diana Wynne Jones</a><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span>What you have to understand first of all, is that I idolise Diana Wynne Jones. There are more prestigious authors I admire, there are, even in her field of children's fantasy, writers better known (J.K. Rowling) and more respected (Philip Pullman.) But if I could be any writer and take on their whole writing legacy (good and bad, she's been writing for more than 30 years), it would be her. <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span><br /><br /></span></span>When I first discovered <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tale-Time-Diana-Wynne-Jones/dp/0006755208/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233146041&sr=1-1">A Tale of Time City</a> at the age of 11, I read it straight through (in those days I always read books in one sitting) and then turned back to the beginning and read it aloud to my brother and sister. Somewhere in my family's crawlspace there may be, embarrassingly, a stack of cassette tapes that I recorded of the first book and a half of the <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=dalemark+quartet&x=0&y=0">Dalemark Quartet</a> (<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cwidder-Dalemark-quartet-Diana-Wynne/dp/0192752790/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233146519&sr=1-1">Cart and Cwidder</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drowned-Ammet-Dalemark-Quartet-Diana/dp/0192750828/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233146519&sr=1-2">Drowned Ammet</a>). Every time I made a mistake, I carefully rewound and started over.<br /><br />I like her because she writes characters who feel like my close personal friends - or people that as a child, I <span style="font-style: italic;">wanted </span>to be my close personal friends. I like that, like me, she is primarily a standalone writer in a genre full of hefty ten-book chronological sequences. Her most famous 'series', the <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=chrestomanci&x=0&y=0">Chrestomanci </a>novels, can be read in almost any order and on their own, most of them tenuously linked only by the enigmatic enchanter Chrestomanci and the same set of fantasy worlds. And the writing! The exquisite understated visuals of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lives-Christopher-Chant-Chrestomanci/dp/0006755186/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233162976&sr=8-1">The Lives of Christopher Chant</a> are pretty unbeatable.<br /><br />She is an expert plotter, one of the best, and I am still surprised by her endings even after reading her books many times. As an aspiring child writer, I wrote to Diana Wynne Jones once, asking whether she plotted her books out ahead of time, or worked them out as she went along (I expected the former a la J.K. Rowling, one owes much to DWJ, but hoped for the latter as reassurance for my own haphazard methods.) I received this response:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:Georgia;" >"No, I certainly do not plan every book out in advance. This leaves no loose space for unexpected things to happen in, and I love to be surprised by things suddenly happening at me when I'm writing. What I do, is to know the beginning and (usually) the end, and something pretty vivid and intriguing in the middle, and then let the book do what IT wants to do. Things can get pretty wild two-thirds of the way through. But just after that, I see the pattern the plot makes. Have you noticed, as a writer, that most stories, if they are right, make a pattern you can almost draw as a diagram? (For instance, the one I have just finished the first draft of makes a design like the caduceus - Mercury's wand with snakes wrapped round it - starting off in loose loops that get tighter and tighter). When I see this pattern, it is quite easy to pull the plot into line. But I think that, because the plot has usually surprised ME, it tends to surprise other people too.</span><span style="font-style: italic;">"<br /><br /></span>Yes, Diana, I like that. Still, it's hard to believe when looking at something like <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Witch-Chrestomanci-Diana-Wynne-Jones/dp/000726769X/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233146677&sr=1-10">Witch Week</a> which comes so perfectly full circle, or <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fire-Hemlock-Diana-Wynne-Jones/dp/0006755194/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233163363&sr=1-1">Fire and Hemlock</a>, not my favourite but a beautiful rendition of Tam Lin and the tricky device of one person living too parallel lives<span style="font-style: italic;">. <span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span>Howl's Moving Castle is a fractured fairy tale romp that somehow maintains a seriously compelling core, and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ogre-Downstairs-Diana-Wynne-Jones/dp/0007154690/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233163382&sr=1-1">The Ogre Downstairs</a>, one of her earliest, is one of the most natural and sympathetic step-family stories I've read.<br /><br />Lately, Diana Wynne Jones has been writing sequels, culminating with her most recent, House of Many Ways, the second sequel to <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Howls-Moving-Castle-Diana-Wynne/dp/0006755232/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233163455&sr=1-1">Howl's Moving Castle</a>, one of my favourites. The thing is, if it was anyone else, I would probably enjoy these books. But, for me, her past work (and really I mean almost all of it) has set the bar too high.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">House of Many Ways </span>has a good plot, some great devices (Howl disguised as a sickeningly sweet golden-haired child comes to mind) and some truly funny moments. DWJ has always had a wry English sense of humour and it's used to good effect in this novel. Unfortunately, what usually makes the humour so compelling, so necessary, are the deeply serious undertones that always come along with it, and those undertones are entirely missing from <span style="font-style: italic;">House of Many Ways. </span>Even worse, the humour often feels forced, and the story is a little silly. Worst of all, the main character, Charmain (really, Diana? <span style="font-style: italic;">Charmain?</span>) is self-absorbed and unappealing, the minor characters are caricatures, and the villains are hardly there. It is really only the returning characters (Howl, Sophie and Calcifer - who don't take over the story which is a good thing) and the quality of the writing (which, as always, is seamless) that make this a worthwhile read.<br /><br />Her last few books have fallen flat for me in much the same way. Some of them are very nicely plotted, but the depth of message and of character seems to have waned a bit, replaced with some nice writing, a dose of humour, and some sharp clever devices. With her, though, I expect something more.Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-5726472181840225912009-01-21T12:31:00.003+00:002009-01-21T12:49:42.497+00:00Inauguration<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3TVHqKNxWss5k6UW124u6UdNULiQUI8vtNQNBz1rv80mvKCNnnr61JeNNJI3aV6QeNC1npOdpznpR8iiVduRoHqItaTRIqWe4tSioa49sbGCkMGhryafw-LxYuBfjAgyHwi8Vkg/s1600-h/n285401018_180013_8609.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3TVHqKNxWss5k6UW124u6UdNULiQUI8vtNQNBz1rv80mvKCNnnr61JeNNJI3aV6QeNC1npOdpznpR8iiVduRoHqItaTRIqWe4tSioa49sbGCkMGhryafw-LxYuBfjAgyHwi8Vkg/s320/n285401018_180013_8609.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293727849407342434" border="0" /></a><br />On election night, I stayed up till 2am (GMT) until enough electoral votes had stacked up on the TV counter that I could allow myself to sleep. Four hours later, I dragged myself out of bed for work and switched on the television, just to make sure. The BBC coverage was joyous, and I sat on the sofa watching the Chicago celebrations and blinked tears out of my eyes.<br /><br />I didn't realise until that moment how much I actually cared, how important this election really was to me. I was genuinely proud of my country, for the first time in five years living abroad. I had been carrying around that heavy weight of disappointment and frustration for so long that I didn't entirely realise it was there until it was gone.<br /><br />When I came to the UK, I found myself suddenly having to constantly defend my country, a country whose current politics I had never supported or believed in. Still, it was the generalities accepted as fact that bothered me so much ("all Americans are fat", "90% of Americans don't have passports", "all Americans are racist fundamentalist Christians".) There was usually, of course, a "well, obviously you're not like that, Amelia..." which always seemed to me to be missing the point. But I had nothing to throw back at them - until now.<br /><br />Now, I don't even have to do the defending. America has done it all by itself. I was particularly pleased that Obama's speech acknowledged the place that America has in the world, and its effect on the global stage - not just "we are the most powerful country in the world so other countries need to do what we say" but "we are the most powerful country in the world so we have greater responsibilities to the rest of the world."<br /><br />Obama said: "For the world has changed, and we must change with it." It's about time.Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-3334810308158612082008-12-28T22:55:00.016+00:002009-01-05T21:38:44.818+00:00Merry Christmas to all!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_JTq3S5IeqlrEY1Mia6w9AkGY7pgPcz9gRx4EEclcIU2GYMkeFfPXmGO3erj6t3KUD2SxNQYIHG8O-dnDdjWN79cPy7cVn4mG7775XJOcH1vRdvcTP6QXAMDol-pdPtf8nJ64dw/s1600-h/n1256370260_30301850_6808.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_JTq3S5IeqlrEY1Mia6w9AkGY7pgPcz9gRx4EEclcIU2GYMkeFfPXmGO3erj6t3KUD2SxNQYIHG8O-dnDdjWN79cPy7cVn4mG7775XJOcH1vRdvcTP6QXAMDol-pdPtf8nJ64dw/s320/n1256370260_30301850_6808.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287923885038467218" border="0" /></a>No time for blogging in all the bustle of Christmas so this is going up very late! We had a lovely but very busy time so here's a quick montage of the festivities.<br /><br />On Christmas Eve we had a huge meal with my step-siblings: turkey and stuffing; parsnip, mushroom and cashew roast; candied carrots; roast potatoes; brussel sprouts and walnuts; coleslaw; homemade gravies of various types and cranberry sauce. Plus lots of traditional English mulled wine. Unfortunately, we were so busy cooking that we forgot to take any pictures of the completed feast!<br /><br />We do, however, have pictures of Hugh, created by my husband and siblings:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsywauXuBkivbyTLwgRLvI_rqKtw2Ls71vPxhGSjQ8dDUC-_5UZqrdiwvJTsqvFDRbGDG_7aWYyKop-HABR-OXowysaZdoNkcHczUDtEN00NH-H2YKlIZ0M63ESYTndu_qsdNI2w/s1600-h/d+004.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsywauXuBkivbyTLwgRLvI_rqKtw2Ls71vPxhGSjQ8dDUC-_5UZqrdiwvJTsqvFDRbGDG_7aWYyKop-HABR-OXowysaZdoNkcHczUDtEN00NH-H2YKlIZ0M63ESYTndu_qsdNI2w/s320/d+004.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287919201487464306" border="0" /></a>We read The Night Before Christmas and my youngest sister insisted that we put out milk and cookies for Santa - although they didn't last long:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzuczgCPAHpKMJT0w54GLaegDK6-pop8NNJpM8g5DtCHSjAINSUrDf5u9VFZoU5MM3xRDS_UhRwLSsXf7rqvZPFPqPR7bJYS15FTIK6eTabdruBZissXYPfz1p5fwY0vyoa3mU7A/s1600-h/Blog+Muffin.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzuczgCPAHpKMJT0w54GLaegDK6-pop8NNJpM8g5DtCHSjAINSUrDf5u9VFZoU5MM3xRDS_UhRwLSsXf7rqvZPFPqPR7bJYS15FTIK6eTabdruBZissXYPfz1p5fwY0vyoa3mU7A/s320/Blog+Muffin.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287919738961066242" border="0" /></a>We all woke up early on Christmas morning and drank lots of spiced holiday tea while opening our presents.<br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwtGU7CPakiwCKd-_rIPjIwS6QaO-ldGMnlb2uOTzQWAA_akyh5k6K7ebH2FIuJR7zdyKYwFFHSx42fRXzZ-hbpqj3HMKWBTXUjW4pifplKpcQbEBdubPtGRGySNt721_DjPGOIw/s1600-h/Blog+opening.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwtGU7CPakiwCKd-_rIPjIwS6QaO-ldGMnlb2uOTzQWAA_akyh5k6K7ebH2FIuJR7zdyKYwFFHSx42fRXzZ-hbpqj3HMKWBTXUjW4pifplKpcQbEBdubPtGRGySNt721_DjPGOIw/s320/Blog+opening.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287924889977800114" border="0" /></a><br />After hashbrowns and eggs (my favourite Christmas breakfast as it reminds me of my dad) we went out to get some fresh air playing disc golf in the snow - my stepdad's favourite activity:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM6fg9sNzxTNzL_NDaoaQ06H6ntwxB7F3XeGf5pJKpdddh5-YzpmbWNhA0TgsdV0BhH2rz5EyzWsnt5ad0JlCKCOrNJuBE0PYhwFhCGR9pDMRdEL2Qt7qUwhFa_-ICVnyi8gAU2w/s1600-h/n1256370260_30301813_3971.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM6fg9sNzxTNzL_NDaoaQ06H6ntwxB7F3XeGf5pJKpdddh5-YzpmbWNhA0TgsdV0BhH2rz5EyzWsnt5ad0JlCKCOrNJuBE0PYhwFhCGR9pDMRdEL2Qt7qUwhFa_-ICVnyi8gAU2w/s320/n1256370260_30301813_3971.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287924885559316642" border="0" /></a><br />Finally, we had a late dinner of leek and potato soup, paella, white beans with chard, and hazelnut chocolate roulade:<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAJFFtK80h-ejJ8DZldMApFN9XwFhqw54OEkR9S8sXAgVw3_8IRp3yWnImatjbBfnu_v4kAVMCPDd_Lky87pdsQBKTSyvKCoTsbiL-7XzaZolmqIxB6E6nmCKdvwgWU0aiSgabTw/s1600-h/n1256370260_30301852_7546.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAJFFtK80h-ejJ8DZldMApFN9XwFhqw54OEkR9S8sXAgVw3_8IRp3yWnImatjbBfnu_v4kAVMCPDd_Lky87pdsQBKTSyvKCoTsbiL-7XzaZolmqIxB6E6nmCKdvwgWU0aiSgabTw/s320/n1256370260_30301852_7546.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287924892855495458" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp8uFP6g9haqpDH1MJQP_cYFCtG7mzpM4d1BTLF_r752Tcw1BmyAKruKrZ0OjpOUwJ26N04m-SdEQ2FOzaBo5_-Wo9fr-iYSWlhJsMLqe9_NMdWaHUYTQFAeFVeW0FVdwmjHBbqw/s1600-h/n1256370260_30301835_1488.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp8uFP6g9haqpDH1MJQP_cYFCtG7mzpM4d1BTLF_r752Tcw1BmyAKruKrZ0OjpOUwJ26N04m-SdEQ2FOzaBo5_-Wo9fr-iYSWlhJsMLqe9_NMdWaHUYTQFAeFVeW0FVdwmjHBbqw/s320/n1256370260_30301835_1488.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287925838110465906" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Merry (belated) Christmas everyone!<br /></div></div>Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-75693399397864660232008-12-23T13:05:00.005+00:002008-12-23T13:20:56.959+00:00In the deep midwinter<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnej0yePUNiredCGMM7xksOJFJgEc6MMCKxGjwwe-fGtO7GoSaPUXd4sDGvdIO3ZTwo3AymSok5M-dd_OugcMZrwV9Mb2H5R3RAyJuTbtsGo4_A81996GZNfXDwga7EY56GMu-DQ/s1600-h/BLOGLGIM0043.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnej0yePUNiredCGMM7xksOJFJgEc6MMCKxGjwwe-fGtO7GoSaPUXd4sDGvdIO3ZTwo3AymSok5M-dd_OugcMZrwV9Mb2H5R3RAyJuTbtsGo4_A81996GZNfXDwga7EY56GMu-DQ/s320/BLOGLGIM0043.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282972626847510002" border="0" /></a><br />In Michigan and have been without internet for the past few days. Still getting over the jet lag and the shock of being snowed in without public transportation. Not quite up to writing a full entry at the moment, so here are a few pictures.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdAs2Yy1N-CEvYDketJbicdeBhq5meKpkSyi5XTZ2hMqcdjM2QN7Ohmkc5JbGcf3iUBbKQRiFEBdApxLngR7y5uPYe86qLhwt9s21Xfs8Towj9r-hsYlzy-2Cu9k_RbFwpHPWQcQ/s1600-h/BLOGLGIM0041.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdAs2Yy1N-CEvYDketJbicdeBhq5meKpkSyi5XTZ2hMqcdjM2QN7Ohmkc5JbGcf3iUBbKQRiFEBdApxLngR7y5uPYe86qLhwt9s21Xfs8Towj9r-hsYlzy-2Cu9k_RbFwpHPWQcQ/s320/BLOGLGIM0041.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282972189389654866" border="0" /></a>The lake, frozen and snowed over. My husband and my youngest sister spent the afternoon yesterday making an ice rink - with limited success.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgSctrT537yvrznUe6mUMU950eAeKA8z5tYPSrBLMSCX99l4GrPiNtIiEeZHlyUZXbIPqoiG4FrY17RPw964Kjr36CMEL4KqzZ4YLJEbcWTQNKluaSAikhTwkd0Crj1_QBOHHQIQ/s1600-h/n1256370260_30301000_4799.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 227px; height: 303px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgSctrT537yvrznUe6mUMU950eAeKA8z5tYPSrBLMSCX99l4GrPiNtIiEeZHlyUZXbIPqoiG4FrY17RPw964Kjr36CMEL4KqzZ4YLJEbcWTQNKluaSAikhTwkd0Crj1_QBOHHQIQ/s320/n1256370260_30301000_4799.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282972633589714562" border="0" /></a><br />My birthday on Sunday which was a lovely day. These are glasses of champagne with a drop of Mom's homemade raspberry cordial - delicious! My sister cooked a great gluten-free pasta bake with tomato sauce, basil, lentils and lots of cheese. I got lots of children's books this birthday, some of which were favourites from my childhood, others new YA fantasy from a couple of my favourite authors. Also two classic DVDs to add to my collection, earrings, gloves, and an original painting from my sister. A perfect birthday, and my first in America for three years.Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-80055289689620661222008-12-16T21:20:00.006+00:002008-12-16T21:58:25.642+00:00O come all ye faithful<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280507674722266210" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixwh-QPM4SOhosaO2tZLm_jS626uvsCSOnZFT9gbH30uRyWZNo7WeddgRyucRmrianO465XKwQyi5lZqmmfFWH8V_9wGpXxEcPG5A-o5xVj9emG0mwRvEHLFfK7YyzQ48VgZoU2g/s320/DSCN1291.JPG" border="0" />Back to work - still not feeling 100% well and lots of things to get sorted before I go on holiday at the end of the week.<br /><br /><p>I had a lovely break in the middle of the day today, however, getting the bus into town to go to a lunchtime carol service in the cathedral with some colleagues. I have a real reverance for cathedrals, partly because I still haven't gotten over my American astonishment that things can be so <em>old, </em>partly because they epitomise the mystical, dramatic side of Christianity that I find intriguing. Cathedrals are so impressive and intimate at the same time. I'm rarely disappointed by them.</p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280507704996013922" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 213px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-UyqW5qqScssjuuKEd8HtJXjuaXBpE4XClacWg-2qURzMsh4BbXSL2izDsUe0K2ZykYA8oZuNeyom-_czMD6EZeS30P8XNDl3Cp64c3jtskUpyqOKN3OZ_dIca7u_HIB8NTMLfg/s320/Wedding+Pictures+025.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p>On our honeymoon in Paris, we very nearly didn't visit Notre Dame on our last day which was pouring with rain. In the end, though, we were short on money and cold and Notre Dame was both free and dry so we thought we'd pop in for a look. A boys' choir was singing, and all around the church were little candles burning, each lit by a different visitor, all those prayers and rememberances floating up with the boys' voices into the rafters. I put a coin in the box and lit a candle for my dad. I always wonder what my dad would think of things like that, having been very unreligious himself, but I feel he would have appreciated the gesture. He had a soft spot in his heart for things like this - he always teared up, for instance, at the end of To Kill a Mockingbird when Boo Radley finally appeared. It's the sensory side of lighting a candle that does it I think - the flicker of the flame, the slight crackle and the faint scent of the burning wick, makes the act of rememberance feel physically real.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280507693520437874" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIN2iGUuc_FBQTArlAB4OtzLhyphenhyphenfV4CjegPL6uK39LKz0vKEuu-FLxsviaxYj45OpRHY9kgf7wcKYFsdb2QvIU2wQOcCMHstYGjb_b65eZVnLSCbV7DKH7LEPu-HrbwdHkfIMmwgw/s320/DSCN1301.JPG" border="0" /></p><p>Anyway, the carol service today was lovely - only Once in Royal David's City really caused me any difficulty. I'm sure that I must have heard this one a million of times before in both England and America, but the tune never seems familiar. The version of O Come All Ye Faithful (one of my favourites) had the dreadful lyrics along the lines of <a href="http://www.know-britain.com/carols/come_all_ye_faithful.html">'does not abhor the Virgin's womb.'</a> Go read it, really that's a terrible verse. The service was quite thoughtful and the presiding priest serious - I'm told that in past years it has been a little more joyful, but I don't mind my carols a little mournful. It feels more holy.</p>Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-52210804886344107112008-12-15T20:32:00.004+00:002008-12-16T21:09:00.247+00:00Life of a blanketIf you're not a fan of craftsy talk, look away now. Go read a literary entry or look at some pretty pictures of the sea or tiny Christmas trees. Consider yourself warned.<br /><br />For those of you who are still here, you may know that I have been knitting a green blanket... for 3 1/2 years! It is the simplest pattern in the world and I'm a fairly competent knitter - although the lace mohair shawl I tried to make for my sister last year defeated me. But this is big! Double bed size! It is good to knit in front of the television - but it's so boring. You don't ever get anywhere. It all looks the same. This is why there have been year-long gaps in between just a few rows. I don't knit <em>that </em>slowly, I promise.<br /><br />First it was this:<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280493689153163442" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 256px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 192px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGOpLKzUkcGn1r_duYwLL8Itzy6IBh0D-JYy68OZmaNnOKZJzVUoj1vEZykMaYpTpVUytswuhpz_5_mIy_9rOxh995_V1Zf4-0nX68IUfO-8tp5RZLLU29oggq3SWSQ1LoN2HR1Q/s320/Simon's+Camera+Pictures+009.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />But now it is this!:<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280494019257144610" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 256px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 192px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5XXF4ChU8pX-liito3IsjgKNgwtQokeIhoLNR3-t0tayqNJrfgU8kFbpzXvORHsV0N1VD-WUeQXpGB7nBzK0RVJ4dGJFw6kT_PG-tRQL5Tnnl-LH8Eh0fvwrXFaUL90gyrmbZ5g/s320/Simon's+Camera+Pictures+008.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />and this:<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280494016706757778" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio4-BQOmVU-XajMjtmZ2BfDHBIjV5abGybeaknqW6wOeoHAGBeuCjfGk3Oi91AiWstnGl_Sz9tRCXSzGgIx0qKTyX5RDZr5N4H2bA8ZT4-s3NWxVLKJ0Gt84JPqlJuLCZY5mMdCg/s320/Simon's+Camera+Pictures+001.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />Okay, slight confession, that first picture was taken today, and this excitement is because I have finished the second panel - of five. But I am resolved to finish the rest by Easter (which will be the four year anniversary of starting this project, oh dear.) Watch this space.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Backdating my entry is very naughty - it is lying really, I know that. But I finished the panel on Sunday and meant to post this on Monday so it is correct in spirit.</span>Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-37046539943338878952008-12-14T20:40:00.004+00:002008-12-16T21:51:13.564+00:00It's always ourselves we find at the sea<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb9mALhxvQlEvOO_1VEvubM1iiBoRwn-MfHGKbQYKQXnIrGEXGyLFKCsCRSWx8jnlKmTVkQuXmjYHfV1l5vVFjKya86daw33g_hZmf_28fZngKjIav_sh4u2gsR517BMrcBFrhBQ/s1600-h/seablog141208.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279749229048419026" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 183px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb9mALhxvQlEvOO_1VEvubM1iiBoRwn-MfHGKbQYKQXnIrGEXGyLFKCsCRSWx8jnlKmTVkQuXmjYHfV1l5vVFjKya86daw33g_hZmf_28fZngKjIav_sh4u2gsR517BMrcBFrhBQ/s320/seablog141208.jpg" border="0" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal" style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia"><i><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></i></p><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">maggie and milly and molly and may</span><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">went down to the beach (to play one day)</span><br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">and maggie discovered a shell that sang</span><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and</span><br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">milly befriended a stranded star</span><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">whose rays five languid fingers were;</span><br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">and molly was chased by a horrible thing</span><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and</span><br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">may came home with a smooth round stone</span><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">as small as a world and as large as alone.</span><br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)</span><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">it’s always ourselves we find in the sea<br /><br /></span>- e.e. cummings<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"><br /></span><br />I'm finally recovering from being ill and Simon and I went for a short walk by the sea this afternoon. Our shoes and socks ended up soaked through, but I always find the sea inspirational, awesome in the correct sense of the word. The rhythm of the waves is always calming, and eventually it feels as though you are breathing and your heart is beating in time.<br /><br />This is one of my very favourite poems, first read in a much-loved fat book of children's poems that my grandparents gave me (one of the best of its kind I think, I wish I could remember what it was called.) I've always wanted to write a story out of this poem, and recently I've begun little fragments of one on my train journey to work that runs right along the coast. It's the story of four adult sisters who move, for the autumn, to a house by the sea. Think The Ghost and Mrs Muir meets The Sea, The Sea - but not at all of course because I've drawn on a lot of different threads in my past to create these characters: trans-Atlantic experience, close families, both east and west coasts of England, and much of the material feels very real and familiar to me. As with all of my writing these days, I can't seem to keep short, and I think it's a roughly 80,000 word novel in the making rather than a short story, although I'm really using this as a de-stressing exercise rather than a serious project. It makes a nice break from the rewrites for Glass and Ice, my first novel which is a mammoth children's fantasy that needs major work (and that I do find very stressful.)<br /><br />But I like the rhythms of the sea, and my 'maggie and millie and mollie and may' story (tentatively called 'Whatever We Lose') is as therapeutic for me. It's something I can work on when I walk along the beach and just feel the need to write that wind-sea-sky feeling down.Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-86004268984838652462008-12-13T23:18:00.013+00:002008-12-16T21:50:40.385+00:00Have yourself a merry little Christmas...<u><span style="color:#0000ff;"></span></u><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279418974648888258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS2vOn5vJUm6HVdjyKW6gnIJVM0skQVeGR6_rkWm8Cu5ojr0CQOXPDBI_5B7u3MHbOZZxrLPDNixJADmCy3DGsJsfFRQwq5YrLr-ZlXnBGIic3GPS3NmkmmwCHpPBo3oy9w888mw/s320/Simon's+Camera+Pictures+1022.jpg" border="0" /> Little is the operative word here. Our pretty little flat is minimally decorated this year because Christmas suddenly appeared without warning (it's these mild Devon Decembers - they trick you), Christmas presents have stolen the overdraft, and our few ornaments have been eaten by Simon's parents' attic. Next year I will plan ahead (I say this every year), but this year we've decorated just to get us in the Christmas spirit as we won't be here when the day actually arrives - a week today we fly to America for my first Christmas there in three years, and Simon's first away from his family.<br /><br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279422609711904466" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 135px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBaFZAoDJh9sfZLFqe5opvvK56y6RWnz4s07mWu7rG8aXHeiVkK-Xw0Lz3zViPuanwsD-F91w1GgPVeRD-jKrNj0nsUfHarnur0uDaLUxtJXTfZctLrcVgzcsq9v2n5K2bGtsVpQ/s200/Simon's+Camera+Pictures+1024.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><br />This is me and my dad, many years ago now. I'm talking - as usual. He looks so young there, and healthy, this is long before he was ill and is the way I like to remember him. My instinct always places this photo as the same Christmas that my mom gave me my Gwinna doll - not Gwinna really, I don't think, but obviously reminiscent of that red-haired girl who grew wings in the beautiful, luminous <a href="http://bhberger.com/children/books/bks_gw.htm">Barbara Helen Berger book</a>. I always think of that book as glowing, all of the illustrations pulse with a kind of inner light. My mom didn't make the Gwinna doll, but this was back when she did make dolls, even sold some through the nearby Waldorf school, soft cotton star-shaped babies and a brown-haired brown-eyed one that looked like me. It's been a long time since my mom has made dolls and it's hard to imagine her doing that now - like me, I think my mother goes through phases of these things, an intense interest that fades as life changes. It's strange to think of, we are all so different now than we were then, and there is an emptiness where my dad is, that only pictures like this and my hazy (possibly imagined, certainly embellished) memories can try to fill. I find that I do come back to some of my young phases, however, years later, so maybe Mom will make dolls again, in that distant future when we have children and there is some reason for it again.<br /><p>I don't think this picture can be the same Christmas as the Gwinna doll, however. That Christmas, I'm sure (I think) is the one where I painstakingly copied out all the lyrics of the many verses to O Little Town of Bethlehem, my favourite Christmas carol, as a gift for my parents. I can't have been more than six then, but I must have been older than the me in the photographs. It's still my favourite, but it's one of the few things that jars in an English Christmas for me - in England it has a completely different melody, more joyful, upbeat almost. It is the sadness that I like most about the version that I know and love, the solemness, the stillness, the wonder. In the more melancholy version, I can feel the cold, the empty streets, the stars twinkling, each solitary in the sky, waiting, watching. It's that feeling that I like, and the reason I copied the song for my parents who were quite unreligious, and very rarely sang Christmas carols.</p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279429199911848178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvS2sk1_CUPZpeUQFQJC9zP9TfVzvLtRJpbmaARwdknL4gEufj-qxq29l1ykb2YjcXiNzMyfp9k3Hmu8ff4BC6f8uk2CU-PfneRghQFYUm2xvGHtVL8P4j8DCBAkc_riMqxks5Ag/s200/Simon's+Camera+Pictures+106.jpg" border="0" />Here is our tiny Christmas card display, including (although you can't see it very well because I am a terrible photographer) our little Advent calendar from Simon's parents. Although I am decidedly agnostic in my religious views, there is something about the traditional Christian Christmas that deeply appeals to me and I love Advent. I'll always fall for a good story, and this is one of the best. When it comes to Advent calendars, I've always preferred the traditional ones with pictures each day, counting down to a final double door on Christmas Eve. We always looked forward to it (I'm sure my sister opened those doors early more than once - but I never did) as though it was a surprise, as though it wasn't always Mary and the baby in the manger. <a href="http://alittlechickadee.blogspot.com/">My cousin's blog </a>reminded me of another Advent tradition in Waldorf teaching, the star walk, where figures of Mary and Joseph walk along a path of stars to the stable, getting one star nearer every day. The stars they've left behind are placed in a blue felt sky above them. Finally, Simon's parents have an Advent ring wreathed with holly and ivy, with four red candles for each Sunday of Advent and a final white candle for Christmas day. I like these ways of counting down to Christmas, making the getting there almost as important as the day itself.<br /><br />I am not a fan, however, of what passes for an Advent calendar for most children in England these days, with chocolate behind the doors instead of a picture. The plastic and foil shell left behind does not make a nice display for the mantelpiece, there's no story to it - and it rots their teeth. When it comes to the holidays, I don't see how American obesity rates can be so much higher - in England, the term Easter eggs, for instance, usually refers to large chocolate eggs rather than coloured real eggs.<br /><p align="left"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279429198308139602" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 134px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJJoOnMn7mLcLOp23-q24-Ha-FHg6xtrp-4jYoontVoYJpC1itKN7E4T43jDlLhs6Ge3eyC64hwymAbBUB35vJo0323kPAChyphenhyphenl_tb8lf8U85ECJu3IYhXyCXt0z4YItTOt-xOH5A/s200/Simon's+Camera+Pictures+104.jpg" border="0" />To finish, here is my little indoor rose bush. It is much prettier than it looks here. If I could take pictures properly, you would see how beautiful it is.</p><p align="left">Happy ten days to Christmas - and eight days to my birthday, by the way!</p>Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-25035706282594141612008-12-12T17:06:00.000+00:002008-12-13T17:08:29.977+00:00Great Expectations - or my meandering ravings about Dickens<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCMq1-G48EIIZHJNvHDPY-Do3ZM5qbOXABHhNH8rTIr46BihyrluFoXdljeTgpcYwGIQ8syt7Lg8la_yWVW7Qy1PsBR-R1CPx_EowmOhFdcI17tAosRBhvnhmg25Om9fS2_UEN9Q/s1600-h/Simon's+Camera+Pictures+101.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279321318825416002" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 192px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 256px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCMq1-G48EIIZHJNvHDPY-Do3ZM5qbOXABHhNH8rTIr46BihyrluFoXdljeTgpcYwGIQ8syt7Lg8la_yWVW7Qy1PsBR-R1CPx_EowmOhFdcI17tAosRBhvnhmg25Om9fS2_UEN9Q/s320/Simon's+Camera+Pictures+101.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>I always forget that I love Dickens. I almost convince myself that I don't really, that I <i>like</i> him but he's a bit old-fashioned, his prose is long-winded and hard to get through and his characters are caricatures. I go years without reading Dickens, convinced of this. And then I finally pick up a Dickens novel, thinking that I'm in for a hard slog but that there's something about Dickens that I've always liked...</div><br /><div>Each time I realise that I'm <i>wrong</i>. I love Dickens, and once I get going I find his characters enthralling, his prose gripping, and I can't put the book down till the end. This is why I managed to read <i>Oliver Twist</i> cover to cover at the age of ten, curled up in a log cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (I also read <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> which I hated and which managed to put me off Defoe and the whole of eighteenth century literature - I strenuously avoided the entire century at university and have only just now realised that this is based entirely on my ten year old prejudice. Maybe I should give Defoe - and Richardson and Fielding - another try...)</div><br /><div>When I was thirteen, I went through what I call my Dickens phase which involved reading <i>The Pickwick Papers</i>, <i>Nicholas Nickleby</i>, <i>Oliver Twist</i> again and half of <i>Bleak House</i> (that one was a bit too much for me, precocious reader though I must have been looking at this list.) I did plan to read <i>Great Expectations</i> in my thirteen year old phase, but I made the mistake of reading the introduction first which went into exquisite detail about the ending. So I put it aside, confident that some day I would forget the ending and then I could read it properly.</div><br /><div></div><div>My average reading time for a thousand page Dickens novel was two days. Looking back on it, I've often wondered how I managed it. Now, I remember. </div><br /><div></div><div>It helps, maybe, that I've been down with some sort of flu-like illness for the last few days and I've had plenty of time lying on the futon staring at the ceiling, but after reading the first few chapters on the train to and from work, I finished the rest in a handful of eager reading sessions. The characters are eccentric, but beautifully drawn and beautifully human, and to me the writing feels surprisingly modern. Miss Havisham, in her old wedding clothes, with the clocks set at ten past nine, Wemmick with his tiny moated castle and his split personality, Mr Jaggers with his extraordinary mind, iron control, and compulsive hand-washing could all come straight out of a 21st century novel, but I'm not sure that they would be so honestly and sympathetically realised. The setting is also superb, with some gorgeously evocative, immediate description. Dickens nicely contrasts the eerie marshes surrounding a pleasant country village, fully imagined but never over-described, with the shabby London inns and the looming shadow of Newgate prison.</div><br /><div><i>Great Expectations</i> is one of the classic <i>bildungsroman</i>, tracing the life of one character from childhood through coming of age. Unlike most of Dickens' other novels, the point of view stays entirely with Pip, the protagonist, and although there are a number of other major and minor characters, the focus stays very closely on the central character and his story. One of the things I like about Dickens is that every incredibly minor character will reappear at some stage - with a family and a whole subplot - creating a real sense of the multi-layered, multi-classed Victorian British society. (<i>Dombey and Son</i> is a underrated example of this that I really enjoyed.) <i>Great Expectations</i>, with its first person point of view and short chapters, does much less of this than Dickens' other novels, but that means that the tension stays strong and potent throughout and rarely dissipates. Because as well as being a coming of age novel, <i>Great Expectations</i> is a first rate mystery, with an aura of danger from the very first chapter where Pip is set upon by convicts in a graveyard. The plot is exquisitely well-laid and surprisingly fair on the reader - the many twists in the story will come as a shock to many (who haven't read the introduction beforehand!) but can be easily traced through the novel, often to the very opening scenes.</div><br /><div></div><div>Somehow, however, <i>Great Expectations</i> manages to be more than just the story of one man's life or a good suspenseful read. The intimately focused point of view does not make this novel less universal, although it does not investigate the minutiae of as many different characters as in other of Dickens' works. Instead, the self-reflective style (and Pip is positively self-condemning - and often rightly so) allows the reader to constantly reflect on humanity both as a whole and individually, on our dreams and ambitions, and the cause and effect of the smallest things that we do. This famous quote from somewhere in the middle sums it up best:</div><br /><div><i>That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day. </i>- Great Expectations</div><br /><div></div><div>So... <a href="http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/19/37/frameset.html">read it.</a></div><div> </div><div><span style="font-size:85%;">(I am backdating this post because I meant to write it yesterday...)</span></div>Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32023612.post-41846349452179578612008-12-11T14:25:00.005+00:002008-12-12T18:28:50.285+00:00New things<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ8yT1ae1hTV_9bNRjuVb2p_u0yO5QfzuVi8Kdm03SGTrPsgSYnH2-uZpZ7cTIjRkH4uIT0DA5XUmq-EM5OPVncYgJw31dYPOX_8t1WK4zCEVYC8MOA7sWrPst1FMnKsK9t2PBvw/s1600-h/Simon's+Camera+Pictures+0682.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278972085326838178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 171px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ8yT1ae1hTV_9bNRjuVb2p_u0yO5QfzuVi8Kdm03SGTrPsgSYnH2-uZpZ7cTIjRkH4uIT0DA5XUmq-EM5OPVncYgJw31dYPOX_8t1WK4zCEVYC8MOA7sWrPst1FMnKsK9t2PBvw/s320/Simon's+Camera+Pictures+0682.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><div>I feel that I need an emptier new blog for a more adult me. I started my LiveJournal when I was a 16 year old boarding school student, immersed in writing and teenage angst in the deep snows of Northern Michigan. Now, it is suddenly 7 years later. I have a different name and a different accent, and I live in a country where snow rarely falls, and never here so close to the sea.<br /><br />At the moment, I'm stuck in a cycle of working, eating, sleeping, and more working, obsessing about writing but not doing it. I need something to remind me that there's still creativity left in the tired me that comes home from work every night. I have lovely life, really, but I do so little with it! This blog is to encourage me to do something - and make me appreciate the things I already do.<br /><br />And there is a literal (but not metaphorical) ocean between myself and my family that I'd like to bridge. My sister said to me the other day that the hardest part of being so far away is thinking "What is Amelia doing today?" and not having any idea what to picture. So this is for that too. To give the people I miss somewhere to imagine me.<br /><br />So here's to inspiration and adventures and optimism (this is not a blog for me to complain about my life.) Wish me luck!</div></div>Amelia Mansfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07084737088806570587noreply@blogger.com1