Magic and memory, the sea and the stones, red and reader...

So, I wanted to go back to Culbone, to the tiny church in an isolated Exmoor valley that helped inspire my first attempt at fiction, WalkerBut memory plays strange tricks and the path I was sure would lead up into the woods, led instead down to the beach...

And the pebbles were speckled and spotted, seal-smooth pelts.  And water-washed wood, with all the weight sucked out by tide and time. So we turned back and found the true path, tucked away where it shouldn't be, where it wasn't, at the back of the pub.   

Through tunnels of green, the kind of hidden hollow-way, the kind of secret steps that have joyed my heart since childhood. What is it about that play of green on green, of shadow and light, of moss-embraced stone?

The path climbs up through woodland, sometimes you glimpse the sea, mainly it hides and you just hear its sluice and shunt.  And I worried.  Would the magic remain?  Could it? And oh...oh...the little wooden hut (the one which let you make your own cup of tea, take your own biscuit and maybe buy a book or two; the one which trusted you to leave your pennies in the pot) was now disavowed...forbidden. A stern sign announced that this was Private Property - and that one should Keep Out. 

And Vivienne had warned me that it had changed.  And she was right.  It was all fenced off and signed away and oh, oh, oh...how we humans love to fence and surround and name and own, don't we? 

And even in the church itself, it was somehow all about private property and keep out.  Thou shalt not.  

And I felt bereft.  The magic had gone. Lost under strictures and rules, fences and knots. Trespassers Will be Persecuted. 

 But then, as I sat at the foot of the cross, I started noticing different things. Things I hadn't seen before.  Magical things. A face peeping out of the green on an old, old window.  Can you see it?  A merry imp?

The red red lichen on the gravestones - and so many of the people whose memory they marked were named Red.  My Name is Red.  Good book, btw - have you red it?

And it struck me that it's folly to expect magic to remain the same.  How could it?  Places change. People change. Everything changes (while still, in some way, remaining the same). We cling to our memories of how things/people/places are - we demand that they remain - but that entombs them.  And maybe, just maybe, when we cling to old magic, it prevents new magic from being seen?

Anyhow.  It struck me that I was being precious about Walker.  I'd taken it down from Amazon because I felt dissatisfied with it, unhappy with my writing.  I thought I'd maybe revisit it, rewrite it, re-magic it.  But then, sitting in the tiny church, watching a shaft of sunlight on the list of rectors, that long line of rectitude scripturing-stricturing back to the 14th century, I changed my mind.  Let it be.  

Click on the cover below to buy and see if I made a mistake.    

Does it matter?

But seriously.  I’m sitting outside in the sun, hearing the church bells ring the hour.  Noon.  I’ve just had an early lunch (chick pea dahl) and have fed the dogs (not chick pea dahl).  And I’m sort of half thinking.  My thoughts are a mess these days, a total mess.  I keep retreating to meditation, to the place of no-thought, but then I wonder – should one always seek to escape?  To run away?  Isn’t it opting out?  Just another form of distraction, through no-distraction?

And meanwhile the world is so screwed up.  Or rather, we’ve screwed it up so badly.  Recently I have been re-reading books I read when I was young and, in particular, the ones that nudged my green sensibilities.  The ones that probably partly influenced my book Walker.  Shabono.  Ishmael.  Have you read Ishmael?  It doesn’t make for comfortable reading.   

And  then (this morning at the gym) I finished Liz Jensen’s The Uninvited.   It was a cheap Kindle download and I picked it up because I’d quite liked The Rapture and Louis Drax.  I’d wanted some mindless entertainment, some frivolous distraction but there again – those uncomfortable issues: our over-population, the non-sustainability of growth, our greed, our living so out of kilter with the rest of the planet… and despair washes over me.

And then I ponder – does it matter?  We are born. We live.  We die.  Like all animals.  Yet, unlike (as far as we know) other animals, we make up stories.  We call these stories things like ‘True Love’ and ‘Challenge’ and ‘Work ethic’ and 'Happy Families' and ‘A Good Life’ and ‘Personal Growth’.  Or maybe for some of us the only story is ‘Survival’.  It just depends on our circumstances and our personal bent.

‘You’d be happier in an ashram,’ Adrian often says to me.  Maybe he’s right.  But I’m not sure that an answer either – it’s just another story.  Probably there is no answer.  The thing is, nobody knows. 

I let my mind wander over the D.H. Lawrence story, The Man Who Loved Islands (my second favourite DHL story, after The Man Who Died).  Have you read it?  I haven’t revisited it for years.  But, as I remember, it reinforces the idea - you can’t run away.  No matter how I may fantasise about a simple life…a little hut…in the deep woods… on a shoreside…on an island even…I know it won’t solve anything. 

Should we be trying to save the world?  It’s tempting to say so but nothing is changed for sheer force of will, is it? You can't change people.  You can only change yourself.  Big changes will probably only come by internal change.  One person at a time.  Can we change enough?  In time?  Should we?  Who knows?  

And, really, does it matter?  Yes, I’m repeating myself…I told you, my wondering whirs around, a cloud of unknowing.  Does it matter?  Probably not.  But it’s still sad.   And now the church bell rings again.  The half hour.  And I'm just wandering in my mind out loud. 

A Very British Writer Blog Tour

I don’t usually go in for blogging round robins or memes.  But Vivienne Tuffnell asked nicely and I was needing a break between two projects, both equally unappealing, so I figured, why not? 

It’s about being a British author – a concept I confess had never occurred to me before.  About looking at whether national characteristics (whatever they may be) influence our ‘work’. Now, see, I don’t really feel of myself as British, or English, or anything really, so I’m on a sticky wicket (ho ho) from the start.  But I’ll give it a whirl. There were questions and I like being asked questions, almost as much as I like ticking boxes.  Click here to read Viv's responses (and do check out her books). 

Carshalton Park - there was a river when I was small.

Q: Where were you born and where do you live now?

A: I was born in Surrey, in a place called Carshalton, which has now been swallowed up by Greater London.  When I look at it with my adult eyes (which is not that often) I see bland suburbia.  It seems so small, so trammelled, so claustrophobic.  But, as a child, I managed to find endless magic. I poked around old Iron Age works, explored grottoes and springs, climbed hills, mapped woods. I saw minute worlds in walls and wasteland, in parks and back gardens. I made myself a small fiefdom in the arms of an apple tree; a cave under the roots of a lilac bush.

Now I live in Dulverton, a small town in the Exmoor National Park in South-West England. It’s wild and really just ridiculously beautiful – a land of echoing moors, steep combes (valleys), tumbling rivers and the crashing sea.  You should visit, you really should.

Q: Have you always lived and worked in Britain or are you based elsewhere?

A: I have mainly lived and worked in England. Apart from a year’s sojourn in the USA. However I have severe travel lust. Both for places inside the British Isles and Ireland and also abroad. 

Q:  Have you highlighted or showcased any particular part of Britain in your books, a town, a city, a county, a monument, well-known place or event?

A: My non-fiction books are, by necessity, universal, not tied to place.  However the Somerset Levels were inevitably an influence on the books written while I lived there – The Natural Year in particular charts a year of living consciously with nature. 

When it comes to fiction, Exmoor is a natural muse.  Both Walker (my shamanic novel) and Samael (the as yet unpublished first part of my YA Angelsoul trilogy) are, in part, extended love poems to Exmoor.  The second part of the trilogy shifts to London, a city I lived in throughout a large part of my twenties and which I also love. 

Q: There is an illusion – or myth if you wish- about British people that I would like to discuss. Many see Brits as ‘stiff upper lip’. Is this correct?

A: What is British?  Britain is a melting pot. It’s a mongrel country on the whole now. I feel that ‘stiff upper lip’ idea is well and truly defunct. It describes a clichéd view of an upper/middle class Britain that no longer really exists.  However, where I live on Exmoor, there is a certain reticence, a pretty well entrenched sense of privacy. People tend just to get on with life; they don’t whine and, when life goes tits-up, they tend to turn quietly to the bottle or just get out the shotgun.  Anything rather than go talk about it.  Psychotherapists don’t tend to set up shop here.

Q: Do any of the characters in your book carry the ‘stiff upper lip’ or are they all British Bulldog and unique in their own way?

A: No. No stiff upper lip, no British Bulldog.  There are some characters who are, reserved, shall we say – the strong silent types…Ruth in Walker and Eden and Zeke in Samael come to mind but then they are, variously, shamans and mages, and those types tend to keep their own counsel.  And my books also contain characters with less savoury characteristics - small-minded racism, sexism and a tendency to domestic violence. Sadly those aren't just prevalent in city life. 

Q: Tell us about one of your recent books.

A: Let me talk about Walker .  I wrote it because a few things collided. I started practicing shamanism and, at the same time, I discovered an amazing place on the Exmoor coast – Culbone – it was just numinous.  On a subsequent visit, I found a small hut offering DIY refreshments and some very old books for sale by a woman who’d lived there which confirmed my conviction that it was seriously magical.

Walker is the story of a teenage boy, Hunter, who nearly dies in a car crash and comes to live on Exmoor with a grandmother he has never met.  It’s a pretty classic quest yarn – on the outside Hunter has to find the lost kashebah, a non-physical temple that can help protect the world’s soul. On the inside, he has to find himself, or – if you like – his own interior kashebah.  That makes it sound a bit worthy and it’s not (at least I hope not).  I’d like to think it’s a fast-moving adventure yarn that just happens to be based on esoteric fact. 

Q: What are you currently working on?

A: Making money to fund my travel habit. *smile*

Q: How do you spend your leisure time?

A: Meditating, exercising, tramping the moor, sitting by the fire musing, listening to music, mind-wandering.

Q: Do you write for a local audience or a global audience?

A: I’d like to think global.  Certainly my non-fiction books have sold all over the world – The Detox Plan was translated into over 20 languages, if I recall (it's now available in an updated e-edition).

Q: Can you provide links to your works?

A: Of course.  The easiest place to find all my books in one place is via my Amazon author page.  As I said before, my fiction titles are still books in search of a publisher – but you can read the first few chapters here and here. 

Q: Who’s next?

A: Ah, I’m not good at picking and choosing.  A lot of people who read this blog are writers, I know, spread across the length and breadth of the British Isles. I’d love to know their thoughts.  If anyone takes this and runs with it, let me know and I’ll post a link to your answers. 

Words fail me

Words fail me so often.  It's why I often turn to music. But then, also to image.

There’s a theory that people filter the world through a dominant sense. That, while most of us use all our senses, there tends to be one which comes more naturally, which elbows the others for first place. So we are generally visual, auditory or kinaesthetic in the way we relate to the world.  I first came across this concept when I was taking some post-grad linguistics courses and looking at how our primary sense mode affects learning language. And, on that score I’m highly visual.  I need to see words, as well as hear them.  When I was at junior school we learned French purely by listening to it. I was rubbish.  When we went up to senior school we shifted to learning the old-fashioned way, with books. I flew. Schools could do well by finding out how their pupils perceive the world and adapting learning programmes for them – it would save a lot of heartache.

Anyhow. It’s probably why I dislike the phone so much. I can’t rely on visual clues.  And I hate audio-books with a passion. 

Adrian, on the other hand, is purely auditory. He often barely notices how things and people look. The visual is totally unimportant to him.  He’ll happily listen to spoken word for hours.

Sight is sensual to me. When I write (fiction) I see the scenes playing out as if I were at the cinema. A beautiful image will stop me clean in my tracks, take my breath away – as much as a piece of music, or a single chord, or a note (with all its over and undertones). As much as a a touch, a sensation (affecting not just the place touched but vibrating through body and space); as much as a taste (with all its various subtleties and innuendos). Yeah, I guess I feel all the senses pretty acutely.

But images. I grab them, I hoard them, I sink into them. I have journal upon journal brimming with images, all carefully cut out and pasted.  And every time I write a book I have a mood board, a treasure map of images on the wall in front of me. It’s not so much about how the actual people and places look (because I know that, clear as day, in my mind - I don't need other representations) but about the mood, the feel, the atmosphere of the book.  One of the comments from the editor at HarperCollins who looked at Walker struck home. She talked about a novel having a ‘palette’ and that some of the colours of Walker’s palette didn’t ring true.  And she was right.  I had taken on board early advice from Philip Hensher about the book and included garish day-glo colours into what was always a book of moss and slate, green and grey.  I hadn’t followed my visual eye.  Needless to say, I took out the imposters.

A short while ago I discovered Pinterest. Thanks to Zoe. And oh my! This was what I had been craving. A place to squirrel away all the stunning images I find as I wander the web.  So, if you want to see some of the visual inspiration for my book Walker, take a look here.  If you want to see what was playing in my mind when I wrote my beloved Samael, look here.  Right now I’m back to working on Tanit, the sequel to Samael. It’s proving a tough one to write – but then true love never runs smooth, eh?  And the third one is coming together in images, even if the words are a long way away.

It's a place of dreams. Of beauty and pain. Of other worlds. 

So, yes, I like Pinterest, I really do. Sure, you can follow and be followed, but there isn’t the whole ‘in your face’ thing of other social media. And it seems like their policies are sound and they are (for now, at least) pretty human.  There’s no advertising.  And the Pin button grabs the URL of the place where you find the image, so the artist or photographer gets credit.  As an image resource it’s incredible. Because so far it has tended to appeal to those of a visual bent (the place is crammed with artists, photographers, fashion bods, architects, designers and so on), you don’t get anywhere near the tacky crap you get from the usual Google image search. In fact, sometimes, it’s almost sweetly naïve – for example, tap in ‘lust’ and you get a whole pile of images of shoes and sofas!  


But is it useful? Said a friend. 'Do we really need another form of social media?'  Well. I suppose it depends what you want to do with it. Could you use it as another of marketing for your 'product', she asked. Sure. I see people selling stuff there - jewellery, design, art. But really, use your imagination. If you're, say, a holiday letting business, you could entice with images, not just of the property but of the lifestyle surrounding it.  It's a god's gift if you want to seduce, entrance, attract those with a strong visual sense. Hence all the 'lust' - people make wishlists on Pinterest. And I bet they buy. 

Yeah, I put up a board for my books but I have to say that wasn't really my main reason for joining.  I'm just head over heels in love...with images.  
But then again, I wonder. It's so personal. It's like revealing your soul. Far more than words. I dunno. This might be a short-lived love affair. But for now... it's rather beautiful. 

Anyhow.  How do you perceive the world? If you write, do you use image?  As well as words.  And what are the images that stop you in your tracks?  

Eco-literature for teens? Can books help save the planet?

I wrote my teen novel, Walker, several years ago.  

It’s the story of a boy who dies and who comes back to life as a shaman, a walker between worlds. 

It’s aimed at the mid-grade/YA market (hard to be precise as reading tastes vary so much but I’d say if someone likes Percy Jackson, Michelle Paver, Rick Riordan etc., they should like this.)

Walker had an agent and did the rounds of publishing houses.  It also made it through to the shortlist of The Wow! Factor competition run by Waterstone's and Faber.  Yet, despite all this it never quite found a home.  It got onto the editor’s desk at Authonomy and the feedback I received from the editor at HarperCollins made me rethink the book quite radically. So I rewrote it. Rewrote it twice, actually.  Well, gazillions of times really, but ended up with two main versions – a ‘boy’ version and a ‘girl’ version.  Which appealed to me for all sorts of shamanic reasons.   

Cow Castle - built by pixies

So. Why Walker? 

Firstly Walker is set on Exmoor and really this place is one of my constant muses.  Can a place be a muse? I think so. There are just so many legends here; so much history and prehistory, magic and mythology.  Nature is so darn...elemental. Its mood shifts round every corner - whether on the wild bleak moorland, in the deeply forested combes, the swift running rivers, the crashing waves against cliff or sultry slap against shore. I wanted to try to capture/encase/enchant in words some of its tricksy, tempestuous, rugged charm (yeah, I like my muses like that). *smile*

Secondly Walker is about shamanism. 

I love shamanism. 

I wanna talk about it more, in more detail, later as it’s part of the Labyrinth. But, for now, for starters, think of a practice where you can journey into other worlds, other realms – where you can find spirit guides and animals; where you can go for healing, for self-knowledge, for wisdom, for inspiration, for education. It’s not always a gentle process. Spirits often play rough, pulling you apart before putting you back together. It’s a journey of self-awareness and also a journey of connection – with other people, animals, places, times. Above all, shamanism is about the Earth – and this brings me onto the third point…

Cos thirdly, Walker is about the Earth. It's got an underlying environmental plea for sanity running through it. It’s not a worthy book; it doesn’t ram points down your throat but it does have the life blood of the planet running through its pages.  

This is eco-lit…just as much as any fist-thumping non-fiction tome on climate change.

Fourthly, finally (fine ally), Walker is a yarn. I wanted to write the kind of book I loved as a child; the kind that lures you in and makes you turn page after page, reading by torchlight under the covers. The kind written by people like Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, Rosemary Sutcliff.  When I met one of my total heroes, Alan Garner, a couple of years ago, I told him that his book The Weirdstone of Brisingamen was my lodestone, my template for Walker. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Is that really a good idea?’ J Jeez, I love that guy. You've never read Alan Garner? For shame on you! 

Anyhow, there you have it. Walker is my paean to Exmoor, my homage to storytelling, my head-bowing to shamanism and my earnest hope that we can learn to love our world and respect it before we pull it to pieces.  

Did I succeed? I dunno. You tell me. One of these days I may get my act together and self-publish, in a lovely edition made from paper harvested from sustainable forestry of course.  In the meanwhile, if you happen to be an editor or publisher who likes the idea of this then...get in touch.  

You can read more about shamanism and the world of Walker on its own blog – here…

You can read the first few chapters here…

Oh, oh and, is this part of the Labyrinth?  Of course it is.  

Igam Ogam up the Great Serpent

Llandudno.  Again.  Twenty years I’ve been coming here, to the place where the mountains meet the sea. 

This time I joined Adrian and James half the way there…at Telford.  Where a tiger smiled and showed me the way. No, really. He did.  You gotta love it when you're looking for the loo and a big guy dressed as a tiger points the way.  

Different morning walking here.  No hilltop fort, no wide open field, no strong wild river.  Instead, down to the seashore, to walk by waves.  But no. The tide was in. No beach. No halfway place – neither sea nor shore. No borderland; no liminality.

So, when a path is closed, you go another way, don’t you?  And that way led up, up, up. Up the Great Orme. The Great Worm. The Giant Serpent.  Too much symbolism there – let’s leave it be for the moment eh?

Igam Ogam, said the sign.  Literally.  Igam Ogam/Ogam Igam. Zig-zag/zag-zig up the ziggurat.  For every hill, every mountain, is a pyramid of sorts.  The wind so hard, so harsh, taking my breath away. Wishing I had tied my hair back as I could barely see.  And really, sometimes it is so hard to see clearly.  Even when the view is really wide, stretching way across the silver sea to the mountains beyond. Snowdonia.  Which makes me think. I must manifest a hair cut J ..and maybe a change…of colour. What do you think? 

I’ve been thinking about shamanism a lot lately as I edit my YA novel, Walker – a book about shamans, about signs, about earth medicine. Medicine? Signs?  Are they here too? Oh for sure (foreshore).  A narrow rocky path, steep, so steep, with perilous drops either side.  Gorse, so much gorse, snatching legs, pricking hands.   Gorse, the flower totem signalling despair, despond, hopelessness. For feeling useless.  Shit, shit, shit… No, seriously, literally - there is just so much shit all over the fading grass.  Why? Goats. Wild goats. There, there, there. Sea-goats. Capricorn. My sun-sign. My shit?  Probably.  Fish-goat-worm – ah, now there’s an interesting trinity of creatures. Christ/Satan/Serpent.  Ah hell, I promised I wouldn’t do this…

And there, hanging, totally still, a hawk. A kestrel.  How? How, when I am being blown every which way by the relentless wind, does that small bird just stay motionless, unaffected?  What minute shifts of musculature are holding its body, which weighs barely anything, so still?  Still. Hmm. Hate that word.  But anyhow.  How does it?  Is that the message?  Control? Balance?  And then, of a sudden…it drops. Clear, focused, controlled.

And here I am, right here and now.  In the pub.  Because it’s the only place I can get wifi.  My iphone has decided  not to play ball either. So I am out of touch.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel.  And see. With a hawk’s eyes?  Ah…wishful thinking.  J

Bones of the Moon

I’m not sure how I came to miss Jonathan Carroll as a writer before now. He was recommended to me a few months back partly because I had written a book called Walkerabout shamanism in which a central character is a wolf spirit guide. The main character in Carroll’s book Sleeping in Flameis called Walker Easterling while a giant wolf features strongly in the first book of his novel cycle,Bones of the Moon. Then, of course, the shaman Venasque dances through all the novels. Venasque can teach people what they most need to know (be it swimming or playing a musical instrument or flying).
“I can teach you to fly. That’s the first step....It’s not such a hard thing to do.”
He can juggle time and space and death. Ah, truly a magician. But you have to learn for yourself; he won’t do it for you.

I stalled though. I didn’t like the cover of Bones of the Moon; I didn’t like the blurb. It sounded like silly fantasy. But then I laid aside my prejudices, started reading and was beyond captivated. I am now in the process of inhaling everything else Carroll has written. People label his books "horror" or "fantasy" - I suppose the nearest tag would be "magic realism" – but I’d rather not pigeon-hole them.  I hate the way books have to be crammed into little boxes.  One thing that is for sure and certain - they are magic, pure magic. I am reading them with my notebook and pen at hand, scribbling down quotes, nodding furiously; shaking my head quizzically. Smiling often; often feeling sad.  Then again punching the air and going 'YESSS!' the way you do when someone is saying in black and white what you have always thought in shades of grey.

“You’ve got to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.” You have, haven’t you? Yet the darkness is also beautiful in its own way, no?

“Life has a very bad case of acne which it has no desire to lose, because that would mean it couldn’t look in the mirror fifty times a day and feel sorry for itself.” Hmm. There’s something in that, let’s be honest. We all like to feel sorry for ourselves; we can all revel in 'poor me' syndrome. Many of us clutch tight onto our pain and sickness for the strangest of reasons.

“How far was a dream allowed to trespass into real life, before it was caught and sent back to its proper place?” Ah, but what is dreaming and what is ‘real life’?

“It’s hard convincing yourself that where you are at the moment is your home, and it’s not always where your heart is.” Where is home? When is home? What is home?

Carroll is made for quoting but also loves quoting other people. His blog posts are often just long quotes, like this one from Osho.
“The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it is not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of the other person - without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.”

Is that true? I absolutely agree with the first part.  One cannot be with another until one is unafraid of loneliness.  But to be happy at loss?  It is logical and my mind balances the equation but still my heart baulks.

On a lighter note he also says, quoting purely himself:
“Dogs are minor angels, and I don't mean that facetiously. They love unconditionally, forgive immediately, are the truest of friends, willing to do anything that makes us happy, etcetera. If we attributed some of those qualities to a person we would say they are special. If they had ALL of them, we would call them angelic. But because it's "only" a dog, we dismiss them as sweet or funny but little more.”

Ah, and you know how I feel about that. :-)

Free-e-day

I'm a bad blogger, an AWOL blogger - if my blog were my house it would be thigh-deep in dust. Hey, wait a minute, my house IS thigh-deep in dust. Art imitates life or what?

Why the absence? Well, I've been trying to concentrate on writing. As many of you know I wrote a children's/YA book called Walker - which languished in a bottom drawer for some considerable time (adding to the dust factor). A few months back I posted it up on Authonomy and now it's riding high at #7 in the charts. I've had amazing feedback and have rewritten it several times (and have a few more rewrites left to go I fear) so the experience has been fabulous.

While on the site, I have met some marvellous people. One, Dan Holloway, has a dream of spreading words and art and music through the Internet for free. So he has set up an initiative called Free-e-day - going live for December 1st - and you can find out more by visiting the blog...here....

I've offered up the first chunk of Walker (and will happily send the rest to anyone who is interested - once it's edited!).... check it out here....

Also, check out the downloads from two superb authors, Traci York and Kim Jewell.

If you fancy getting involved in any way do have a look at the blog......and please spread the word by any means you fancy.... Something for nothing? Can't be bad.