Pencil art

Back in April 2017, I was lucky enough to be conducting research for my Mary Taylor graphic biography at the Brontë Parsonage Museum Library while artist Clare Twomey invited visitors to recreate a long lost manuscript of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. I was thrilled to be able to add a line and was rewarded with this beautiful inscribed pencil. I just got it framed. Many thanks to @studioclaretwomey.

Taylor treasure

 

One of the privileges of researching Mary Taylor has been meeting living relatives and being given access to their family archives, replete with family tales. A day in Leicester was a day I'll treasure, with thanks and gratitude to the Taylor Family.

Pag ed

It is with much gratitude to Creative New Zealand that I am able to report I have received an Arts Grant to fund the research and writing of a graphic biography about Mary Taylor, affectionately known as Pag, "staunch and true" friend of Charlotte Brontë. 

To see work-in-progress, follow me on Instagram. 

I'll be posting up-dates from my research trips here on the blog and on Twitter.

I'm excited to share my progress with you!

Write place

Retro furniture installation courtesy of Isobel and Polly Pocket.



It's been a strange period, since I returned from my research trip: I don't seem to be making much of a dent in the information I've accumulated, but I have been busy.




I have written another short story (and when I say short, I mean SHORT: less than a thousand words). I seem to be able to write about an eight hundred worder in an hour. Oh how I wish it were then finished. Sometimes it is. Rarely. More often than not I end up going over them, again and again, tweaking and chopping, syntax juggling, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, for me, I did not allow myself time for double checking with two stories I sent off recently - won't be winning that competition - and found a typo and a ridiculous primary school crime "loose" instead of "lose". I fear my neighbours may have increased the volume on their idiot's lanterns when I saw that one and went AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!




Hey ho.




It's not all been a waste. A valuable lesson therein, me thinks. Me often thinks a tad too much in the hind of sight as opposed to the fore of it. Oh sight.




Since returning from South Island, where I tried to get a feel for what it would be like to live in the place I was studying (walking the streets so many times I knew what was where enough to give other tourists directions and describe landmarks in a way as to make them think I lived there), I have been feeling retrospective. I have been thinking about my "place" there and here. Obviously, there, I was fulfilling a role - researching, but there was more to it than that. I was thinking - and this is useful for my novel in progress - what makes a place "home"? Answers on a postcard, please.




Anyway, why was I posting today, ah, yes! Award winning short fiction writer, reviewer (to name a few credentials) and blogger extraordinaire (extraordinaire here is defined as "how does she do all of that?"), Tania Hershman very kindly asked me to write a guest blog for her series on "Writing and Place", and you can read it here.

Did I give you a flight?

Sometimes the smallest frames hold the largest views. Incidentally, my daughter took this photograph - and many others as I was enjoying the view of the inside of a paper bag for most of the journey!

Fasten your seat belts. Could all passengers please remain seated whilst the aircraft is taking off and landing. Thank you.

I've been avoiding posting since I returned from my research trip to South Island - what, I hear you say, you were away? Well, here I am again and I have so much I want to share with you all about my trip, but so little I can, alas, as I want to stuff as much of what I have discovered into my novel as my plot allows for.

Please keep your seat belts fastened as we seem to be experiencing a little turbulence.


It's been peculiar, to say the least, being back in Auckland. I have a huge stack of reading material to get through, plus hundreds of photographs to label and scrutinise. I have maps and memoirs and, curiously, memories of my own to sift through and work out what is valuable to my story and what is merely of value to me.


This is your captain speaking, to notify you that we will be landing shortly. We are currently (bunch of numbers) high and with a wind speed of (bunch of numbers), I hope you have had a pleasant flight on behalf of Too Small for Sense and Comfort Airways and I wish you an enjoyable and safe remainder of your journey.



And I have to catch up on blogging and general real life as I know it.

Thank you for choosing to travel with us and I hope to see you all again soon.

Thieve a few

A little piece of NZ, framed especially for you.

I think I may have lost my marbles. Do tell me if you see them rolling around anywhere, feel free to collect them up and keep a few cats' eyes for yourselves, I won't miss the odd one or two.

I have been planning a novel for some months now and next month I am going down to South Island to carry out research for it. I don't have to: in theory I could find all the information I require at my local libraries or from contacts I have made in South Island, and it's going to cost me an arm and a leg, but I really feel I need to experience the place I am writing about first hand. Plus, as there is a lot of oral history in NZ, I need to go to the place itself for that.

I don't want to give too many details away other than to say it is a variation on the idea of a triptych and already it is consuming me. I made a start with writing a few "scenes" back in June, to get a feel for my characters. Much of what I've written so far will not make it into the novel but it has served a very useful purpose, and been worth every word, to really bring my people to life.

This is the first novel I've tackled that's had me scared. I am worried I may have bitten off more than I can chew but there's nothing I love more than a difficult challenge: if something's not hard, it's not fun for me. So I'm doing as much research as I can to be as prepared as possible for everything I am throwing at my characters, and I'm chomping at the bit to find out what they're going to throw back at me.

I've never been to South Island before. When I started planning this novel I spoke to librarians - they were fantastically knowledgeable (as you would expect librarians to be) and went way beyond the call of duty to email links and things they thought might be of interest to me weeks after I had initially queried them! I was given contact details for people living in the place I am going to and was offered free accommodation! I asked an architect about a building and he offered to check out all the details on buildings in my story for accuracy! I have never encountered enthusiasm, helpfulness, generosity or trust as I have found from the people of New Zealand (except, maybe, in the UK! - Especially me, when I lived there!). But seriously, I've been blown away by the offers I've had. So this post is really a big thank you to New Zealand for all the opportunities it has given me.

The only downside is that I have to plan the whole trip! Everything requires timetabling and, as I have droned on about before, I really am not bedfellows with numbers. And the nearer the trip gets, the more stressed I get about catching the plane etc on time, and the more difficult I find organising all of the other things for the correct times and dates. It's giving me headaches - I need to eat some feverfew. I much prefer organising novels than trips! So my marbles have started disassembling and I may loose a few for good. So, go on, take some, I hope they are more use to you than to me!