My pal Elaine asked me to come and talk to the Girl Guide troop she runs about being an author. This was part of a evening devoted to giving the girls ideas about what sort of job they’d like in later life, so we had a doctor, a chief and a teacher (all women) and me.
The doctor, the chief and the teacher didn’t have a problem I had; convincing the kids I wasn’t an Evil Genius. The problem was my name.
If I had to put my hand on my heart and own up, I have to say I’m not crazy about the name “Dolores”. Hardly anyone can spell it and precious few can say it from a standing start. When I was a kid, my friend Anne’s mother used to sing an old Bing Crosby number, How I love the kisses of Dolores, every time I walked through the door. This was trying.
Moving on to secondary school, we did Latin. Wow. What an absolute scream. I mean, it’s bad enough trying to address a table (mensa, mensam, mensae – who wants to say all that to a table?) followed by the side-splitting moment when we – we being thirty-five thirteen year-olds, all anxious to point out one another’s shortcomings - reached the Third Declension and My Name was declined, so to speak.
Dolor, Doloris, Dolori, Dolorem, Dolore in the singular (and there was only one of me) or Dolores, Dolorum, Doloribus, and - I know it sounds like repetition but it’s the Accusative and Ablative - back to Dolores and Doloribus.
At this point Life teaches us it could be worse. I mean, I could have been Doloribus… Which sounds as if a kind Municipal Authority runs a transport service just for Me, but would (I feel this instinctively) have caused Hilarity.
The trouble is, however you decline it, the word Dolores means Pain, Grief and Suffering.
And I’d decline all that, no problem.
It’s because of the meaning of the word Dolores that JK Rowling bestowed the name Dolores on Professor Umbridge, Ministry of Magic employee, sometime Headmistress of Hogwarts, a woman whose idea of detention is to make Harry repeatedly carve on the back of his hand, in his own blood, the words, I must not tell lies. Add to that, being the most boring teacher in the world, undermining Dumbledore, flinging anyone in prison who disagrees with her and setting the Dementors loose in Little Whinging, Surrey, and you get a picture of an all-round bad egg. I mean, Voldermort is utterly evil, but Dolores Umbridge is just pants.
So, the girl guides reacted with alarm when Elaine brightly said, “Here’s Dolores!”
At least they didn’t sing Big Crosby at me. And Harry Potter was a good place to start talking about books.
But I still remember the wise words of Bertie Wooster, addressed to Jeeves; “My word, Jeeves, there’s some raw work at the font!”
Exactly.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Titles
I’ve been thinking about titles for the last couple of days. No, not those sort of titles! Not the Countess of Whatever or Lord Whoever or (descending down the social scale) The Reverend, Doctor or plain Mister, Missus or Ms.
No, I’m talking about book titles.
You see. titles are really important and it’s sometimes surprising for anyone who hasn’t written a book to find out that the poor writer can have cheerfully motored through hundreds of pages, thousands of words, zillions of re-writes and still doesn’t know what to call the ruddy thing.
It doesn’t always happen like that, of course. Inspiration struck almost right away with As If By Magic because it seemed to sum up the whole idea behind the book so neatly. It’s also a well-known phrase which (I hope) makes a prospective reader think they’ve heard of it, even when they haven’t.
The trouble is, a title has to mean something, and not just be a nice collection of random words. It has to say something about the story, not actively put off any of those rare, almost faun-like creatures, book-buyers, and - this is a bonus – sound good.
The latest of Jack’s adventures, which I’ve just sent in to the publishers, concerns a firm of coffee importers embroiled in various dark and underhand doings. When I thought of title Trouble Brewing I had a warm, fluffy feeling of satisfaction of having got it exactly right, but it took some considerable cogitation. Good, eh?
Off The Record is about gramophones and the race to develop a commercial electrical recording system. That’s OK. Dead clever, actually.
A Hundred Thousand Dragons is actually (obliquely I admit) about a hundred thousand dragons and sounds ace.
Mad About The Boy? is, of course, from the song by Noel Coward. It’s the right period, reflects Isabelle’s emotional turmoil as she tries to choose the right bloke, one of the aforesaid blokes is a Bit Odd (aka Mad) and that shrewdly placed question mark is meant to give a frisson of anticipation.
I wish, sometimes, I’d gone for broke and used Jack’s name in the title, such as Jack Haldean and the Murder in the Fortune-Teller’s Tent (it was actually called A Fete Worse Than Death) rather in the style of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Actually, I don’t half wish I had written a book called Jack Haldean and the Philosopher’s Stone, but some bright spark would probably say I’d copied it or something. They’d probably say the same thing if I turned out Jack Haldean and Pride and Prejudice or even Jack Haldean and the Flopsy Bunnies. You know how people are.
But I didn’t.
No, I’m talking about book titles.
You see. titles are really important and it’s sometimes surprising for anyone who hasn’t written a book to find out that the poor writer can have cheerfully motored through hundreds of pages, thousands of words, zillions of re-writes and still doesn’t know what to call the ruddy thing.
It doesn’t always happen like that, of course. Inspiration struck almost right away with As If By Magic because it seemed to sum up the whole idea behind the book so neatly. It’s also a well-known phrase which (I hope) makes a prospective reader think they’ve heard of it, even when they haven’t.
The trouble is, a title has to mean something, and not just be a nice collection of random words. It has to say something about the story, not actively put off any of those rare, almost faun-like creatures, book-buyers, and - this is a bonus – sound good.
The latest of Jack’s adventures, which I’ve just sent in to the publishers, concerns a firm of coffee importers embroiled in various dark and underhand doings. When I thought of title Trouble Brewing I had a warm, fluffy feeling of satisfaction of having got it exactly right, but it took some considerable cogitation. Good, eh?
Off The Record is about gramophones and the race to develop a commercial electrical recording system. That’s OK. Dead clever, actually.
A Hundred Thousand Dragons is actually (obliquely I admit) about a hundred thousand dragons and sounds ace.
Mad About The Boy? is, of course, from the song by Noel Coward. It’s the right period, reflects Isabelle’s emotional turmoil as she tries to choose the right bloke, one of the aforesaid blokes is a Bit Odd (aka Mad) and that shrewdly placed question mark is meant to give a frisson of anticipation.
I wish, sometimes, I’d gone for broke and used Jack’s name in the title, such as Jack Haldean and the Murder in the Fortune-Teller’s Tent (it was actually called A Fete Worse Than Death) rather in the style of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Actually, I don’t half wish I had written a book called Jack Haldean and the Philosopher’s Stone, but some bright spark would probably say I’d copied it or something. They’d probably say the same thing if I turned out Jack Haldean and Pride and Prejudice or even Jack Haldean and the Flopsy Bunnies. You know how people are.
But I didn’t.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Harvest Festival and Stardust
I was thinking about harvests this morning (as you do).
I actually had every reason to be thinking about harvests, as I was helped the kids in church celebrate a harvest festival, a very jolly occasion that involved putting lots of little kids under a brown sheet to be Seeds. Seeds giggle a lot. Then there’s the pretend rain that waters them and the pretend sun that warms them and – lo and behold! – the Seeds all grew, giggling madly, were harvested and got gathered into the (pretend) barn.
It’s great how much pretending little kids are prepared to do. It looks great too, as the kids’ Mums and Dads brought in food, such as fresh fruit and veg, chocolate treats and lots of useful tins which were then taken up to the altar in nice wicker baskets and then to a home for homeless young people (if you see what I mean) where teenagers who are too old for care homes have a halfway-house before living independently. Cooking is one of the skills volunteers teach in the home and that’s where the fresh veg and all the other gifts will be used.
Living in Manchester (not your most pastoral of areas) it’s sometimes difficult to see the connection between things that grow and what we eat and celebrating the harvest helps not only the kids but all the adults involved take some time out to appreciate that our tin of tomatoes or corned beef or chicken ding microwave dinner actually did start off growing.
Being a church service, of course, there’s some very old prayers and hymns about God who created everything and everyone, and the stunning thing is that despite being a very old idea, its absolutely true that all the universe and everything in it (including the giggling kids and the tin of tomatoes) have a common source.
For instance, the cabbage that was on the altar has about 40-50% of its DNA in common with the kind soul who gave it, and the same can be said for the tomatoes and the carrots. And we can trace the origins of absolutely everything back to that moment of the Big Bang when the universe started and the first hydrogen and helium atoms came into being.
The stars are chemical powerhouses and within them formed heavy elements and the complex molecules necessary for that tin of corned beef, the can-opener and the human being to enjoy the sandwich. It takes a star to explode as a Supernova to get the right sort of enriched interstellar gases to form a solid rock and metal planet such as the Earth and about three generations of stars to get the right material to form our sun, its planets and the right chemical mix for life to get going. All the molecules within you have been in two previous stars. Wow. We are, as the astronomer Carl Sagan said, made of stardust. As I said, it’s a very old idea…
I actually had every reason to be thinking about harvests, as I was helped the kids in church celebrate a harvest festival, a very jolly occasion that involved putting lots of little kids under a brown sheet to be Seeds. Seeds giggle a lot. Then there’s the pretend rain that waters them and the pretend sun that warms them and – lo and behold! – the Seeds all grew, giggling madly, were harvested and got gathered into the (pretend) barn.
It’s great how much pretending little kids are prepared to do. It looks great too, as the kids’ Mums and Dads brought in food, such as fresh fruit and veg, chocolate treats and lots of useful tins which were then taken up to the altar in nice wicker baskets and then to a home for homeless young people (if you see what I mean) where teenagers who are too old for care homes have a halfway-house before living independently. Cooking is one of the skills volunteers teach in the home and that’s where the fresh veg and all the other gifts will be used.
Living in Manchester (not your most pastoral of areas) it’s sometimes difficult to see the connection between things that grow and what we eat and celebrating the harvest helps not only the kids but all the adults involved take some time out to appreciate that our tin of tomatoes or corned beef or chicken ding microwave dinner actually did start off growing.
Being a church service, of course, there’s some very old prayers and hymns about God who created everything and everyone, and the stunning thing is that despite being a very old idea, its absolutely true that all the universe and everything in it (including the giggling kids and the tin of tomatoes) have a common source.
For instance, the cabbage that was on the altar has about 40-50% of its DNA in common with the kind soul who gave it, and the same can be said for the tomatoes and the carrots. And we can trace the origins of absolutely everything back to that moment of the Big Bang when the universe started and the first hydrogen and helium atoms came into being.
The stars are chemical powerhouses and within them formed heavy elements and the complex molecules necessary for that tin of corned beef, the can-opener and the human being to enjoy the sandwich. It takes a star to explode as a Supernova to get the right sort of enriched interstellar gases to form a solid rock and metal planet such as the Earth and about three generations of stars to get the right material to form our sun, its planets and the right chemical mix for life to get going. All the molecules within you have been in two previous stars. Wow. We are, as the astronomer Carl Sagan said, made of stardust. As I said, it’s a very old idea…
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Goodbye, Steve
It’s sad, isn’t it? England crashing out of the Rugby World Cup, I mean. Trust the ruddy French. They’ve been playing dreadfully and we’ve been doing OK. Then, as soon as they come up against us – bingo. They play like things inspired and we continue to play OK. So that’s the end of early morning sessions round the TV, with dogs unfed, cats look quizzically at their bowls and the goldfish and guppies in their respective tanks goggling hopefully though the glass while the Gordon-Smiths go “Ooo” and “Argh!” and “Pass it! Don’t kick it!” at fifteen men on the other side of the television screen in New Zealand.
Yes, of course we’ll watch the other games – and come on Wales, you’re the only home side left now – but some of the sparkle has gone out of Saturday mornings. Still, the dogs, cats and fish should be happy.
I wasn’t happy to hear the news about Steve Jobs. He did something really special, by making the design part of the product. I first came across a mention of a mysterious thing called an MP3 player in a Michael Crichton book - Prey I think it was – and my next encounter with an MP3 player was when the young Helen asked for one for Christmas. It’s amazing how this stuff creeps up on you, isn’t it? Suddenly everyone had an MP3 player and I was asked to marvel at a tiny device that could store gadzillions of tracks, more music than you could ever possibly listen to, and CD’s were now outmoded etc, etc and the fact that you couldn’t actually pick out a particular song was sort of lost in the gosh-wowness of there being thousands of songs or tracks on a hand-held device.
But, with Steve Jobs’ ipod you could pick out a particular track. The ipod looks lovely, feels great in your hand and works in the way all beautifully designed products do, by simply working simply. It’s dead easy to use and lets you listen to music without being a geek or computer nerd. In the many tributes to him, it was said that he went over designs again and again before, eventually, they were right. This is so similar to editing a book that it rang a real chord with me. The first effort, the first idea is vital, but after that comes so much extra work to fine-tune it and make it the best that you possibly can. This is where the real labour of love stuff comes in, to make what you’re working on much more than passable but better than it needs to be. (Perhaps England's rugby players could take note.) We’ll be playing music on the ipod tonight while we have our Sunday night bottle of wine game of Scrabble and I’ll raise a glass to Steve Jobs’ memory. Nice one, Steve.
Yes, of course we’ll watch the other games – and come on Wales, you’re the only home side left now – but some of the sparkle has gone out of Saturday mornings. Still, the dogs, cats and fish should be happy.
I wasn’t happy to hear the news about Steve Jobs. He did something really special, by making the design part of the product. I first came across a mention of a mysterious thing called an MP3 player in a Michael Crichton book - Prey I think it was – and my next encounter with an MP3 player was when the young Helen asked for one for Christmas. It’s amazing how this stuff creeps up on you, isn’t it? Suddenly everyone had an MP3 player and I was asked to marvel at a tiny device that could store gadzillions of tracks, more music than you could ever possibly listen to, and CD’s were now outmoded etc, etc and the fact that you couldn’t actually pick out a particular song was sort of lost in the gosh-wowness of there being thousands of songs or tracks on a hand-held device.
But, with Steve Jobs’ ipod you could pick out a particular track. The ipod looks lovely, feels great in your hand and works in the way all beautifully designed products do, by simply working simply. It’s dead easy to use and lets you listen to music without being a geek or computer nerd. In the many tributes to him, it was said that he went over designs again and again before, eventually, they were right. This is so similar to editing a book that it rang a real chord with me. The first effort, the first idea is vital, but after that comes so much extra work to fine-tune it and make it the best that you possibly can. This is where the real labour of love stuff comes in, to make what you’re working on much more than passable but better than it needs to be. (Perhaps England's rugby players could take note.) We’ll be playing music on the ipod tonight while we have our Sunday night bottle of wine game of Scrabble and I’ll raise a glass to Steve Jobs’ memory. Nice one, Steve.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Puns and Feathered Friends
I was tootling round the internet and stopped off at my old mate, Jane Finnis’s, blog where she (with a truly awful pun) was writing about blue tits eating caterpillars that munch their way through horse-chestnut leaves. Here’s the link so you can see that somebody really does make worse puns than I do: http://www.janefinnis.com/
It’s interesting – or, okay, it might not be that interesting, but I’m going to talk about it anyway – why we groan loudly when puns are made. After all, they’re fairly witty, aren’t they? I think they’re a bit like the jokes in Christmas crackers. Because they’re meant to be awful, everyone can join in. If Christmas dinner was actually a feast of wit and a flow of soul, reminiscent of an Eighteenth Century Salon or dinner with Oscar Wilde, it’d leave most of us looking and feeling like numptys, breeding resentment and discord instead of peace and good will.
It’s the same with puns. They’re awful and they’re meant to be awful – even when they’re really good – so everyone can join in with the pun-fest.
One of my favourite puns though, is the pun that wasn’t. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, because it’s one of my favourite stories.
A pal of mine – let’s call her Ethel - was in hospital recovering from a mastectomy (admittedly this isn’t one of the most promising openings you’ve ever heard to a funny story!) when she was visited by her old friend, Yorkshire Sid. Now both Ethel and Sid were very keen bird watchers, never happier when crouched beneath a rudely constructed heap of twigs with a pair of binoculars, watching Our Feathered Friends going about their everyday business. Sid was lamenting Ethel’s absence from the bird-watching fray.
“Eee, Ethel,” he said. “I do hope as how you’re up and about and can come out with us again soon. We’ve had some belting sightings. We’ve had nuthatchs and finches and some lovely t-t-t-t (gulp) and other birds!”
It’s interesting – or, okay, it might not be that interesting, but I’m going to talk about it anyway – why we groan loudly when puns are made. After all, they’re fairly witty, aren’t they? I think they’re a bit like the jokes in Christmas crackers. Because they’re meant to be awful, everyone can join in. If Christmas dinner was actually a feast of wit and a flow of soul, reminiscent of an Eighteenth Century Salon or dinner with Oscar Wilde, it’d leave most of us looking and feeling like numptys, breeding resentment and discord instead of peace and good will.
It’s the same with puns. They’re awful and they’re meant to be awful – even when they’re really good – so everyone can join in with the pun-fest.
One of my favourite puns though, is the pun that wasn’t. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, because it’s one of my favourite stories.
A pal of mine – let’s call her Ethel - was in hospital recovering from a mastectomy (admittedly this isn’t one of the most promising openings you’ve ever heard to a funny story!) when she was visited by her old friend, Yorkshire Sid. Now both Ethel and Sid were very keen bird watchers, never happier when crouched beneath a rudely constructed heap of twigs with a pair of binoculars, watching Our Feathered Friends going about their everyday business. Sid was lamenting Ethel’s absence from the bird-watching fray.
“Eee, Ethel,” he said. “I do hope as how you’re up and about and can come out with us again soon. We’ve had some belting sightings. We’ve had nuthatchs and finches and some lovely t-t-t-t (gulp) and other birds!”
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Oddly Quiet
It was very, very quiet in the Gordon-Smith homestead last night. Jenny was out at a party and Lucy’s gone to university. Now don’t get me wrong; I want her to go to uni, but it’s such a weird feeling to know that she’s not just out for the evening but actually living somewhere else. The whole process is a bit weird. There are some sort of everyday-ish experiences that are well covered in fiction; meeting the man or woman of your dreams (there’s a whole genre devoted to that!) the family novel, where it’s the ups and downs of family life (The Family At One End Street is one of my favourites) moving to a new house or a new country and there’s plenty more. But I can’t think of a single book which covers the experience of parents suddenly bereft of their offspring because they’ve gone to Uni. Going to uni, yes, but for those of us “Who also serve who only stand and wait” as the Poet Milton would put it – no.
And it really is quiet.
And it really is quiet.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Paperbacks!
I’m delighted to say that the paperbacks of A Hundred Thousand Dragons and Off The Record have been released. I saw them both in Waterstones yesterday (and it’s a very nice feeling to see your book on the shelves, I can tell you!) so you can, of course, get them from Waterstones or, as the phrase goes, from any good bookshop. They’re “Trade” paperbacks, which means they’re sold to the trade or, as we usually say, to bookshops. Trade paperbacks are bigger than mass-market paperbacks and have superior paper and binding. They are, more or less, a hardback book but in a stiff paper cover and, of course, they’re cheaper than a hardback.
Amazon.co.uk have them both in stock. Amazon.com (USA) have A Hundred Thousand Dragons. Presumably Off The Record will be coming soon. However, although A Hundred Thousand Dragons is available from Amazon.co.uk, it takes some finding, for some mysterious reason, so here’s the link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hundred-Thousand-Dragons-Haldean-Mysteries/dp/1847512534/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1315765321&sr=8-4
The Amazon.com link is:
http://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Thousand-Dragons-Haldean-Mysteries/dp/1847512534/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315766046&sr=1-11
The Amazon.co.uk link for Off The Record is:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Off-Record-Jack-Haldean-Mysteries/dp/1847513042/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315765495&sr=1-7
Amazon.co.uk have them both in stock. Amazon.com (USA) have A Hundred Thousand Dragons. Presumably Off The Record will be coming soon. However, although A Hundred Thousand Dragons is available from Amazon.co.uk, it takes some finding, for some mysterious reason, so here’s the link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hundred-Thousand-Dragons-Haldean-Mysteries/dp/1847512534/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1315765321&sr=8-4
The Amazon.com link is:
http://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Thousand-Dragons-Haldean-Mysteries/dp/1847512534/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315766046&sr=1-11
The Amazon.co.uk link for Off The Record is:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Off-Record-Jack-Haldean-Mysteries/dp/1847513042/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315765495&sr=1-7
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