Everyday things

Tomorrow Roland Garros starts in Paris so I'll be watching that as long as Rafa continues to play. I'm also concentrating on finishing a first draft of my wip, the fourth part of what has turned out to be a quartet featuring Matho Spirston, humble man of the land turned courier to a Scottish queen.

 I wrote the first half two or three years ago and then lost steam and deviated onto the Affair series.(The Gybford Affair The Craigsmuir Affair, The Matfen Affair.) This spring I picked up where I left off and continued writing, hoping to complete the draft, print it out and take it to France with me. I think I shall manage to achieve it. The writing is going faster now, because I'm not editing, as I was with the stuff I'd written previously.

Last night I went a bit beserk and downloaded half a dozen titles for my Kindle in anticipation of having something to read in France. I shall also take Sarah Dunant's latest paperback, because I'm struggling with it. Lack of Interest, basically, which allows me time to admire her writing style. I may well leave the book there for Jenny to read. She might enjoy it.

Amazon Hold Up

This must be the silly season when everyone has either gone on holiday or is looking forward to a holiday. Certainly cyclists in vivid Lycra (or all in black, depending on their personality) are now haunting our country roads, and backpackers are striding across Hadrian's Wall. It's also hay fever time, and as well as teething, Tim is sneezing.

Editing is going well. I've lost a lot of extraneous, unnecessary words and it has been done when the aim is not cutting word count, but re-writing sentences more gracefully. I tried to purchase Sarah Dunant's new book Blood and Beauty in paperback format this week, but there seems to be a hitch in supply for some reason known only to Amazon. Her first line, from memory, is something like "Dawn was breaking like a bruise in the night sky...." Now that is the sort of grace I want to achieve.

Her sentences are often two or three lines long, yet the clarity is perfect, and nothing like the short, sharp snap and jerk of so many e-book novels these days. An American told me that the illiteracy rate is so high in America that writers have to write at a low level of literacy if they want to sell to the masses. I hope that isn't true, but fear it may be so. It seems a terrible record for the nation that calls itself the most powerful country on earth. Seems to me it won't be long before China and Russia challenge that claim

I don't know why Amazon can only offer used paperback copies. Presumably they are review copies. Yet the paperback publication date was supposedly 2nd May 2013. I could look further afield, but we have just the right amount in voucher form to spend on Amazon and it seems silly not to wait. But I will only wait so long! Dunant's historical novels are among the few I purchase as opposed to reading via the library. I read The Courtesan's Lover this week. It's by Gabrielle Kimm and tells the tale of a woman who sells herself for money in Naples in 1564. The period was a draw for me, and the blurbs promise a good story, but it was a struggle to get through it and the main reason was too much detail painstakingly given. In fact, I could say what the agents have said about my submissions: It's well researched and written but I didn't love it enough!

Good reads

I finished Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant this morning. Published 2009, some of you will already have read and enjoyed it. A tale about nuns in a convent in Italy in the 1570s doesn't sound a likely theme for a good read, but I've been devouring it morning and last thing at night over the last three days and found it riveting. The first words hold the eye and the mind: Before the screaming starts, the night silence of the convent is alive with its own particular sounds. Who could resist an opening line like that? The writing is sure and the language suited to the time and place of the novel without being "worked" in any way, and the varied lives of the women are thoughtfully exposed. Fasting was commonplace among them, and reading of the reasons why it was done makes an interesting comparison with the tales of anorexia common today.

The story concerns a young girl taken into the convent against her will, but to talk about it would give away too much. Instead, let me recommend it for your TBR pile. Or even for your reading matter tonight!

I know I said I wouldn't talk about the weather, but let me just say that about three o' clock yesterday, the temperature went up and the thaw began. This morning we have patches of garden visible again. Now we stand by for floods as all that snow rolls off the hills.