My two hats

Generally, my day job – working with teenagers on the autism spectrum – doesn’t really intersect with my writing life at all, apart from the need to think very carefully about what you say before you say it. (Misunderstandings, as those of you in any way acquainted with an individual on the spectrum will know, arise easily and are not necessarily as easily cleared up...)

But then, along came Vicky Warren from The Bookfiend’s Kingdom. Vicky runs her site entirely in order to draw attention to the work of The Disabilities Trust which look after adults with autism, and to raise money for it. And, to do this, she talks to a lot of writers and works her way around the country tirelessly talking to novelists about their books, going to book fairs and generally being seen about at literary happenings.

She interviewed me in May and, a couple of days ago, I heard from her again, telling me that she had chosen Testament as her October book of the month.
How kind! Something tells me she really does like my book.

When she interviewed me, Vicky asked whether I’d be interested in writing something on what I do in the day job for her site. Given the state of the work in progress, I said I’d love to but would have to take a rain check. I’d still like to but the rain check’s still in my pocket (getting a bit limp) as the wip’s nowhere near finished as yet.

But, if and when I get around to writing my piece for the BFK on working with high functioning autistic teenagers in a grammar school setting (or whatever catchy title I manage to come up with, certainly not this one) it will be weird for both bits of my working life to be together under the same cyber-roof.

I’ve often thought of writing a book called something like ‘Ten Things every Parent of an Autistic Child should Know’.

If I did, would I publish as Alis Hawkins or would that just get horribly confusing?

Happy Official Birthday Testament!

Today is the day Testament is officially published. Hooray! But since the launch was last week and the book has been trickling into the world via Amazon and Waterstones ordering system for at least the last week, it doesn’t feel like a radically different day today.
But, as it is officially the day my baby leaves home, I thought I’d mark the occasion by doing something more than just drivel on as usual here and think about what I’m trying to do in writing. Apart from doing the thing which gives me most satisfaction, pleasure and fulfilment in the world, I mean…

A few days ago, one of my favourite bloggers and writers, Susan Hill, was reflecting on her most recent re-reading of Trollope`s The Last Chronicle of Barset. She had this to say.

‘But in the end, when it is all sewn up satisfactorily, we realise that the narrative, the plot, has been the least of it. What counts is the depiction of pride, greed, love, vanity, falsity, loyalty, steadfastness and Trollope`s profound understanding of how those motivate men, shape them, make them behave wisely and well or foolishly and rashly, and of how, even so, the redeeming power of love can change them into something better. Without this, the plot would be a romp with some suspense but not much else. But without the PLOT, any delineation of character would be dull in the extreme.’

It's not the Plot, Fri. Jan 11th

Which expresses perfectly why I like books with a strong narrative drive – a lot of plot, in other words – and why I try to create characters who are real, imperfect and searching people. For me, when I’m planning a book, plot – ie story – comes first. I start with an image, an idea, an event and work out from there until the whole story becomes clear. But, as the story begins to unfold in my mind, my characters’ reasons for being there, their hopes and dreams, their fears and fantasies, begin to change the way I see events. Events still loom large – they drive the plot forward and, I hope, keep people wanting to turn the pages – but they take on added significance, resonance if you will, from the themes and motives which drive the characters.
In Testament, for instance, the reader is – if I have done my job properly – keen to see Simon successfully complete Kineton and Dacre college, his masterwork. But by the end of the book we are not just rooting for him to get the college finished for his (and its) own sake, but for reasons which have to do with restoration, forgiveness, redemption and – above all – love.

If books were a matter simply of plot, they would be – certainly could be – very short. Events would be described, people only described in so far as that description bore on events and the resolution would be swift. Books are long because they try to draw the reader in by seeking to make us identify with the characters.

Description of landscape or topography should not just tell us why it’s possible for the hero to remain out of sight of the villains but should contribute to the ‘feel’ of the story. In my opinion, some writers neglect this aspect of the craft and there have been novels too numerous to name where I have skipped over passages of description which are both ill-timed and do not contribute in any way to my understanding of what is going on in the mind of the charactes. It seems to me that our characters’ physical surroundings are only really interesting if we are shown how these people see their surroundings and interact with them. Does beautiful countryside irritate the teenage boy because he’d rather be skateboarding in a concrete bunker; does the hardness of the built environment reflect the hardness of society towards the homeless girl? You get my general drift. If description doesn’t illuminate character it’s just wallpaper and I can get wallpaper by just looking up from my laptop screen, thanks.

So, given all that, it won’t surprise you to know that I was pretty chuffed when the following appeared, last week, in the first review I have ever read of Testament.

‘This is an ambitious first novel by Hawkins, which skilfully bridges two vastly different time periods and recreates interesting characters and settings. Both worlds are fully realised and fascinating in their own right.
My one minor quibble is that towards the end of the book it felt as if there was almost too much action in both time periods and it all got a little hectic. However, I would rather there was a lot going on than find a novel struggling for plot.’

Many thanks to Hannah Gray of the Peterborough Evening Telegraph for making Testament the lead review in the magazine last Saturday (Jan 12th).

And many thanks, on the day when Testament officially heads out on to booksellers’ shelves, to everybody who’s been kind enough to comment on this blog, buy the book and be part of the ongoing story.

It's great to have you along!

Facebook and Me

In the very first blog I posted on this site, I complained that I had no idea, when my first novel was accepted by Macmillan New Writing, that it would involve me in enaging with the internet. But, now, I have a blog which is 76 posts old, a website and as of Friday – thanks to Simon Key over at the Open a Bookshop…blog - I am on Facebook. Oh yes. Forty five years old and I’m on a social networking site for teenagers. The Ultimate Frisbee Freak (17) is on but The Bassist (16) despises it and says it’s for wannabees and people without enough friends in the real world.

He may have a point…though he doesn’t exactly eschew MSN.

I have to tell you, I would not have joined if not encouraged to do so by this from Simon:

We'll also be using the site to advertise offers, discuss books, ask peoples opinions on bookshop stuff (I cant work out where the apostrophe should go in peoples, so I've left it out), and also have exclusive facebook book offers which are only available to the facebook members. It can also be an advertising post for people who want to let the world know about a favourite book or their own book!

What publicity-hungry author could resist that? After all, that’s why I’m here in the blogosphere, isn’t it? I’m not so self-obsessed that I think people would want to read about me unless I’d done something interesting. Let’s face, it, most of the cyber-world isn’t interested despite my doing something fairly interesing, ie writing a published novel.

A lot of the people I know who are under 30 – maybe 35 – are on My Space, Bebo or Facebook; possibly all three. People over that age (and contrarians like the Bassist) don’t sign up for social networking, they concentrate their internet attention on email, websites and blogs. There seems to be a digital divide between those of us who think that bite-sized is best and those of us who think that more words are necessarily better. People who have Facebook pages seem (on my minimal acquaintance) to let the photographs, music and video clips which they post speak for them, along with what they and others write on their ‘wall’, instead of overwhelming visitors with screeds of words. Whereas bloggers… well, we are clearly convinced that more equals better. Is it related, I wonder, to the way we were all taught and – more specifically – examined? Most of the exams I remember were essay-based. Make your case in not less than 500words. Persuade me with your loquaciousness. Nowadays, exams are more various and examinees are as likely to be asked to condense what they know into a pithy sentence as to expound it over several pages.

So what am I going to do with my Facebook page? That question presupposes that I'm up to speed with what I could do which, until the UFF and the B return from their Dad's later today, is far from being the case. But i suspect the answer, anyway, will be 'not a lot. The UFF and friends of both the boys of whom I’m fond have started to pop up in my inbox asking if they can be my friends on the site, which I am delighted by, and the UFF threatens to commit occasional cyber-terrorism on my Facebook ‘wall’ but more than that, I’m not sure about, as yet.

I really only joined so that I could be part of the A Decent Bookshop In Wood Green (revisited) group, support Simon and Tim in their very laudable venture and get access to all those people to tell them about Testament!

And I really can't be doing with something else to occupy all my writing time...

Christmas books

Waking from the chocolate-flavoured, carol-sound-tracked, new-clothes strewn oblivion of Christmas Day, life surfaces again chez nous. This afternoon the Bass Player, the Other Half and I went shopping with the Waterstones’ cards we got for Christmas. The Ultimate Frisbee Freak was too busy doing payable chores around the place (severely broke after Christmas) to come with us, though he did send us off with instructions to see if the Dalai Lama’s autobiography was out yet – v. attracted by the Dalai Lama is the UFF.

Once over the threshold of the only bookshop left in town (sigh…) I was determined not to just go for the three-for-twos, partly because I’m beginning to feel dictated to and partly because I want to support authors whose publishers haven’t stumped up for a place on the front tables. And, if I’m totally honest, I’ve read all the three-for-twos I fancy anyway…

The results are in the pile on the right – three chosen by the Other Half, three by me. All will be read by both with much gusto.

Not that I’m going to get to these for a while, still got the birthday haul to enjoy. I’ve just finished reading The Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris which I raved about here a couple of days ago and which I loved more and more as I read it. There’s something timeless about Joanne Harris’s books, as if they’re purely about the people and their predicament and don’t relate to the rest of the world, be it political situation, cultural context (whatever that might be) or historical time-scale at all. it’s a clever trick if you can pull it off, and she can. Apart from the one mention of the internet (to say that Yanne and her family didn’t have it) and the fact that one character is welded to his mobile phone (which immediately puts him beyond the pale) the modern world doesn’t intrude into The Lollipop Shoes any more than it did into Chocolat. The result is a kind of fable, a timeless story with a uninversal meaning. And I love that kind of thing.

But, though I love it, I don’t write it. My stories are much more time-bound. Testament is full of very specific historical references, both in the fourteenth century where Simon’s life and ambitions are bounded by the heresies of Lollardy and in the contemporary world where neither Damia’s campaign to save the college nor her long-distance relationship with Catz could possibly survive without constant use of the internet. Of course, the internet has its down-side as Damia also discovers.

It’s the same with the current work-in-progress. A memoir written about a single summer in 1843 and a contemporary story based very firmly in the West Wales of the twenty-first century. But, as I say, I do love fables and I’ve put one in to the w-i-p, though whether it will survive beyond the first draft, I don’t know. Stephen King (whom I seem to keep quoting as if all I know about writing comes from him instead of twenty years of practice) says that we should kill our darlings, ie cut out those bits of our books we cherish the most as they’re likely to be dead, purple weight. We shall see.

Meanwhile, am I getting any writing – or even editing, as predicted – done this holiday? Not yet. But tomorrow may be another day in that respect…

It's here!

Wild excitement chez moi today as my very own pre-publication copies of Testament have arrived! Here’s the box they came in.

Here they are in a fat pile, looking v. smart. (I do like the way all MNW books have the striking black spine with the title in white.)

And here’s one I prepared earlier. Much earlier and several times. The book itself. Testament. Toby to its friends (you’ll see why if you read it) and oh, so nearly The Master Mason’s Son.

I was so excited when they came that I couldn’t sit still so I gave up writing for a couple of hours and baked shortbread and flapjacks for Christmas pressies! I do like to pretend to be a domestic goddess occasionally!

The arrival of my copies of Testament represents, as I said to an old friend on the phone ‘the triumph of sheer bloody minded determination over any kind of realism’. Thank goodness for Mike Barnard and his brainchild, Macmillan New Writing – as those of you whose Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook falls open at ‘Publishers UK’ will know, there are fewer and fewer publishers who will look at unagented fiction or anything ‘without prior agreement’. In such a chilly climate, the welcome at MNW is warm.

And now, just because I can, I’m going to quote the whole of the acknowledgements at the beginning of the book, because… well, when you read it, you’ll know why.

In acknowledging those who have helped in the writing of a book there’s a tendency to thank everybody or nobody. But there are a few people without whom this book would, quite literally, not have been written. My family, Edwina, Sam and Rob have watched our income go down and down as I have worked less and written more – I would not have been able to dedicate time to writing if they had once mentioned that they might like a foreign holiday or a designer… anything. Their emotional, financial and moral support and unswerving belief that one day I would ‘make it’ have enabled me to produce the book Testament has become.
Years ago, when Testament was an idea, then a tentative draft, my ex-husband, John, gave me enormous support of every kind for which I am truly and enduringly grateful.
And finally, very much in the here and now, I must thank my editor, Will Atkins, who has enabled me to make Testament the book I always wanted it to be.

That's more than enough for today, I think.

Unblocked and showing restraint...

What are my chances of suing Jodi Picoult for loss of earnings? I mean, seriously, how am I supposed to work when there’s Nineteen Minutes to read?

I did limit myself to an hour this morning so I was writing by half past eight so not too much damage done... I made sure that the book didn’t come downstairs with me once I’d got up and I stoically ignored the little voice which said ‘I'm in here’ from the bedroom when I went upstairs to rack the washing up next to the bathroom radiator. OK, yes, I’ve got the heating on during the day, it’s barely getting above freezing in Canterbury during the day at the moment and you try typing with frozen hands. I wear fingerless gloves as it is!

Where was I? Oh yes, the book calling to me. I hardened my heart. I told myself I didn’t care what was going to happen next to Peter Houghton the High School shooter, that I didn’t care if Jodi Picoult had made me sympathetic to somebody who guns down ten of his classmates, that I didn’t want to know (desperately) whether/how JP is going to save him from being locked away in jail for the rest of his natural life. I turned away! Yes.

Over lunch I read bits of The Author which arrived yesterday and felt virtuous and professional. I now know more about the fiasco at the PFD literary agency than I ever knew I needed to know, but I didn’t succumb to Picoult and, after determined thinking and re-writing my own novel is back on track. Result!

The nasty patch mentioned yesterday with such pessimism turned out to be no more than a conversation people shouldn’t have been having. Yet. What we needed was … well, don’t ask because I’m not going to tell you. I can’t, that’s not how it works for me. The minute I discuss the work in progress with anybody it sounds totally ludicrous and I wonder what exactly the hell I think I’m doing. It needs to solidify a lot before I can even let anybody think about looking at it. All these writers who give their spouse their novel to read chapter by chapter? Sheer madness in my view. Or just a very different approach to writing. Perhaps theirs is less subconscious and more conscious. Not mine, as I said - at some length - here.

So, am I going to be able to indulge my Picoult-mania this evening? No. This evening I shall be answering various questions sent to me by the editor of the local newspaper where I grew up (The Cardigan and Tivyside Advertiser) which is, very kindly, going to run a feature on Testament and me.

The questions? Hmmm. That’s for tomorrow’s post, I think.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t already read Nineteen Minutes, buy it. Don’t wait to be given it for Christmas - that’s nearly a week away! Buy it now, today, tomorrow at the latest.

But only if you like page-turners and people who you can – oh so easily – imagine being.

We have launch date!

We have a date! Testament is going to be launched at a party at Goldsboro Books on the 10th of January! Totally excited. Other people are talking about what they’re going to wear and are horribly shocked when I confess to no plans whatsoever to buy anything new. Well, I want people to like the book not to be impressed by a new frock/suit/shirt/ripped jeans/whatever.

With that in mind I’ve been doing a bit on MS Publisher, letting friends and family know about the event via an invitation which will go in the Christmas cards. Also going in the Christmas cards is the dreaded Christmas letter, though we always do jokey ones about foible-filled things we’ve done during the year and don’t mention exam results, exotic holidays or other stuff which will inspire people to mutter ‘it’s all very well for them….’ and cross us off the Christmas list.

Meanwhile, my parents are here and we are Christmas shopping (minus Dad who is allergic, in the way only older men can be to shopping) in the packed streets of Canterbury. Today, packed and pouring with rain – definitely not conducive to festive cheer, but hey, who cares?

Off to see the Ultimate Frisbee Freak in his school play tonight. (Great celebrations this week when he passed his driving test!!)

Blogging about reading and writing will recommence on Monday.

Research and Google

Hooray for Tim Berners-Lee because his invention - the internet - must be the best research tool ever for writers. Today, for instance, I was writing away, describing an ancient, sagging roof when I suddenly realised that I didn’t know whether it was sagging on to its beams or its rafters. Quick trip to Google-land and I knew more than I ever needed to about the difference.
It’s rafters, by the way.

I did the bulk of the research for Testament nine or ten years ago and you wouldn’t believe how much less information was on the net in those days. When I wanted to find out about medieval proofs of age, or the exact beliefs of the Lollards, I had to go and find a book which would tell me. And finding the relevant kind of books took AGES. Now, although every search will bring up a ton (probably actually would be a ton in reality if you printed it all out) of useless references, if you’re canny about the search terms you put in you can usually find some relevant stuff pretty quickly. And Google-hounds like me get ever so savvy about looking at a site or a page and working out within a couple of seconds whether it’s going to be any use or not. You can also quick-search the page you’ve come to for all your relevant search-terms using Ctrl-F and, if half of them aren’t there, bye-bye page.

As my current novel is set in the area I grew up in, I’ve discovered a lot of history I didn’t know when I lived there. My home town, Newcastle Emlyn, has a fantastic website as does the local history society, Hanes Emlyn. So I have not had to go to Aberystwyth University or any other University of Wales library, to trawl through their archives looking for information about, for instance, the Newcastle Emlyn workhouse. Everything I need is on the Hanes Emlyn site, including the name of the Master in the relevant period and census material for each decade of the workhouse’s eighty-odd-year history. Amazing!

Old maps, sadly, seem not to lend themselves to being scanned and put up on the internet and, during the writing of certain bits of this book, I have spent ludicrous tracts of time comparing place-names which occur in early nineteenth-century records with contemporary names and trying to work out whether they are referring to the same place. Sometimes, the places referred to seem to have vanished without trace; or place-names have changed their spelling, from an Anglicised version back to a more authentic Welsh rendition. At other times names have been used which don’t seem to relate to anything. The workhouse in question appears in a 1920s photograph, for instance, as Voelallt Castle which it never was!

I must confess, it was much easier writing a historical novel which was set in a city which has never existed. Salster, the city I invented for Testament, is situated roughly geographically where Canterbury is but bears little resemblance to historical Canterbury. (Though there are some similarities, I’ll be interested if those who read the book and know Canterbury well spot the references!)

I deliberately chose to write about a fictitious city so as not to give myself too hard a time with research. I knew I’d have enough to do finding out about the professions, religions, eating habits, dress etc etc of my characters’ world without having to place them somewhere which really existed. There are a lot of people out there who love it when authors get things wrong and delight in writing to them and saying ‘there wasn’t a White Horse lane in Oxford in 1352’ or ‘the church you mention in chapter 32 wasn’t built until half a century later’. I can do without that sort of hassle.

So why set the current book in a real time and place? Because I’ve always been fascinated by the Rebecca Riots – a sudden outbreak of nocturnal activity in my home area in the 1840s which mostly concentrated on destroying tollgates but which had some pretty interesting off-shoots. But that’s a post for another time…

Titles and what they tell us

I’ve been thinking about titles today. I know we’re told not to judge a book by its cover but, given that most of us see books spine-on in bookshops what we’re most likely to judge a book by is its title. (I’m on a mission to eschew the ‘buy me I’m on a table by the door’ books at the moment in the hope that the trend will catch on and, by January 4th, everybody will be scouring the shelves for books there are only one or two of, exclaiming delightedly ‘Oh, not in a promotion, an as yet undiscovered gem!’ and suchlike).

So, there are all those quirky titles at the moment that simulaneously do and don’t tell you what the book is actually about. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (fantastically original website – do visit if you’re a website conoisseur) A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, etc.

Then there are the titles which basically tell you ‘I’m a thriller’ – Lockdown, Snapshut – that kind of word. You’d never mistake ‘The Tenderness of Wolves’ for a thriller – not if you were going by the title. Mind you, I’m not sure what you would mistake it for if you were going by the title alone. A revisionist view of the lupine species? The texture of meat you never thought you’d eat? (Don’t let this gentle mocking mislead you – I really liked the book and think Stef Penney has done an amazing job writing so convincincly about somewhere she’s never been. They always say ‘write about what you know’ but, come on people, we’re novelists, we’re good at imagining stuff!)

Then there are the titles which tell you you’re into chick-lit territory. (That is if you hadn’t spotted that the cover is pink and covered in shoes, lipsticks or some other supposedly ironic symbol of post-feminist femininity.) I’ve just enjoyed Getting Rid of Matthew, for instance. Now, you’d think that with a title like that you might be forgiven for thinking that the central character would be in the business of offing the said Matthew. No. Nobody who reads crime fiction would think that. Seriously, nobody. No crime fiction tells you who’s getting murdered, even if it happens on the first page. Kill Bill is not a novel, be quiet.
Crime titles are always much more allusive and often adopt the The Adjective Noun pattern - The Scold’s Bridle – or just Adjective Noun – Cross Bones - or even Verb Adjective – Cut Short (actually maybe that’s an adjectival phrase…can the Grammar Police help?)

At the moment, I’m reading Sepulchre by Kate Mosse. Sepulchre’s an interesting name for a book. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines it as

a stone tomb or monument in which a dead person is laid or buried.

Would you call a book Tomb? Or Grave? You just might call it Monument. Somehow polysyllabic names are much more interesting and attractive than monosyllables. Tomb would definitely indicate horror and would probably have a definite article before it. You can see it now – The Tomb. By Stephen King.
Actually, I’ve just checked. There is a novel called The Tomb but it’s not by SK – it’s by a guy called F. Paul Wilson and is the first volume in a series of Repairman Jack books. OK, Repairman Jack sounds ultra-sinister. Unless he was the star of a kids’ animation in which case he’d look like a cross between Fireman Sam and Bob the Builder.

Actually, Sepulchre isn’t an odd name for the book once you get into it and meet the eponymous construction. It’s basically doing the same job as Labyrinth did on the cover of Mosse’s earlier bestseller. In fact, Labyrinth and Sepulchre share more than you’d think. They’re both one-word titles describing a physical structure. So far so obvious. But they’re both also three syllables long and share the same stress-pattern (spot the Speech and Language Therapist….) DAH-dah-dah. It’s a dactyl. As in 'Merrily, merrily shall I live now'. It gets it punch in there early and then trips off the tongue quite sweetly.

My novel, Testament, could be the third in the trilogy, in terms of word-structure.

Testament was a title a long time in the deciding. All the way through the novel’s long gestation and birth (see my website for just how long this took!) it was called Toby. And, like Labyrinth and Sepulchre, once you’ve got into the book you know why. The name ties together both halves strands of the book – the fourteenth century strand and the contemporary strand. It’s a good and fitting title. But only when you’ve read the book. Nobody, one of my ‘focus group’ (ahem, my friends) assured me in the nicest possible way, is going to pick up a book called Toby. It’s just not a title which does anything.

My editor, Will, agreed. So we went through various options. Favourite for a while was 'The Master Mason’s Son' – but that’s only half of the book. I quite favoured 'Steadfast Like the Crane'but, like 'Toby', you have to have read the book to get it and people might think crane as in building machine rather than crane as in long-necked bird. There, see, you did.

So, Testament it is. I think we’re going for the Labyrinth/Sepulchre market because, like those two, it’s a split time novel. Except, as I put it to the manager at a local bookshop the other day ‘don’t think France and the twelfth century (Labyrinth), think England and the fourteenth. Not grails and trails, colleges and statues.’
You should be in marketing’ he told me.

Blast! I quite wanted to be in novel-writing.

Nobody told me, when Macmillan New Writing offered to publish my book, Testament, that I was selling my soul to the internet.

You don't need a website, everybody said, but it would really help.

No, of course you don't need a blog, but it might help to get you noticed.

Yes of course it would help if people could click on to Amazon from your site (what site?) and buy the book.

Did I have a choice?

Reading blogs is a daily delight - I can barely start a day's writing without my fix of dovegreyreader and Stuck-in-a-book - but writing one... I can just tell that's going to be a whole 'nother story...