Plug of the Month - Ten Things I've Learnt About Love by Sarah Butler

I usually use this slot to plug books by friends and family. But I'm making an exception this time. Partly because I met Sarah Butler at the January Short Stories Aloud &  she was absolutely delightful, but partly because I think this is a great first novel, and in this  day and age, first time novelists need all the help they can get. I was lucky enough to get the last copy that was on sale that night which meant I read it before publication day, which is always a bit of a thrill. And I'm delighted to say it lived up to the all my expectations.

Ten things is my kind of book. It's set in  London, and perfectly captures both the murk and the magnificence of my wonderful home city. In addition, it deals with fathers and daughters, grief and loss, the complexity of family life, the meaning of home: all subjects close to my heart. It alternates between the viewpoints of two protagonists, Alice and Daniel. As the novel opens Alice is returning from Mongolia to be at the side of her dying father. We discover that she has always found it hard to settle, struggles to connect with her sisters, and is mourning the loss of a relationship that was always doomed. The second narrator, Daniel, is a homeless man, with angina. Obsessed by the thought of the daughter he has never met, he criss-crosses London in search of her. A creative, sensitive person, who is also synaesthetic (seeing names and people in colour) Daniel too mourns lost love, as he seeks out the daughter who doesn't even know he exists.

I don't want to say anymore, as this is a novel that should be read with minimum pre-knowledge. Suffice to say,it is a finely crafted book, with believable, sympathetic characters. Though there are moments of total heartbreak, I found it ultimately hopeful - however transient we may be, we can always connect with each other if we are willing. Ten things is my choice for my book club this month - and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Coincidentally, Sarah Butler has literally just tweeted her latest short story, check it out - it's brilliant

The Summit in my Sights

If you've been paying attention to this blog, you might have noticed I've been writing a novel...and for rather a long time. It is just over nine years since the original scene of Echo Hall popped into my brain - a woman overhearing a conversation at night time, only to discover the participants are not there - and I've come a long way since then. It took seven and a half years to complete my first draft  and take a rest half up the hill. That version was  65,000 words too light, full of narrative inconsistencies, weakly drawn characters and rather too much melodrama, but it gave me something to work with. IAfter a short break, I  ploughed on upwards with energy and vigour, finishing my second draft last November. At that point I could see I was nearing the summit and now I am happy to report, I definitely have it in my sights. It has taken me a mere four months to redraft the latest version, which is nothing short of miraculous for my work rate. Thanks to wonderful critique at the York Festival of Writing and from my lovely twin Julia Williams and lovely friend Anne Booth, who both read the whole thing, I've had plenty of advice about how to improve it. And it's been a lot of fun.

After Christmas I was full of energy and focus. Throughout January and February I rose at 6 most mornings, completing an hour's editing, before waking the household up. I was particularly inspired by a writing challenge set down by a twitter friend Imran Siddiq (@flickimp) who kept me on track with a weekly review of our mutual achievements. And at the end of Feb, I was lucky enough to have a a fantastic weekend in the Gladstone Library. I promise to blog about  the marvels of that wonderful place, but for now I will say I had a fab time working for 3 days flat, and came back with only 1 part to revise. Life being what it is ( I did run the Reading 1/2 marathon in March) I slowed down after that, but by the end of April I finally completed the draft.

This time round has all been about re-shaping. Having worked pretty linearly before, I decided it was time  to take each separate story and look at them as a whole. So I worked on  Parts 1 &5, 2 & 4 and 3 in succession.

Part 1 & 5 are written in the first person, and tell Ruth's story in 1990/1.  The opening needs to be the strongest part of the novel and my feedback suggested it wasn't quite cutting it. Ruth was too weak and wishy washy, her husband Adam too mean,  and his grandfather mellowed far too quickly. So Part 1  has had a complete make over and a whole new chapter. Chapter 1 has moved to Chapter 12, and Chapter 2, to Chapter 1 (which funnily enough restores some of the original material back to the beginning again).  The remaining chapters have moved forward to compensate, and  been spliced and diced to change the narrative pace .This has made it easy to fill out the chapters that were a bit light in Part 5 and rework some of that material. . Though it was only just as I was finishing that I finally worked out something crucial to Ruth's back story which explains a lot about her indecisive nature. . There's a lot of work still to do, but I think most of the criticisms have been dealt with.

Parts 2 &4  follow Elsie's story in 1942/3. These too have had quite a re-write. One of the most radical changes is to place it in the present tense. These sections are supposed to be based on diaries and alternate between Elsie and Daniel (her husband's cousin) points of view . I tried writing them as diaries but that felt wooden. So I wrote them in the third person in the past tense. Changing this to the present has livened them up I think and given the sense of immediacy I was after. The other major changes here have been to do with pacing. Some key scenes have switched from part 4 to part 2 which gives a better shape to the arc and I've fleshed out some chapters that were a bit thin.  This part of the novel was always the strongest and I think the changes are all to the good.

Part 3 is  all about Rachel, and covers the longest period, 1911-1924. This has been the hardest section to write. It's narratively important as what happens to Rachel, her sister Leah and their husbands Joseph and Jacob, lay the foundations for the resentments, conflict and tragedies that follow. But it's been difficult to get the narrative voice right, and pacing has been much more harder over thirteen years then  two. I think I've solved both. I always had the idea that Rachel's son Daniel was telling this story, so last time round I made him the narrator.  It was OK but the voice wasn't right, and I wasn't quite convinced he and Elsie could have sat on a hillside long enough for him to tell it. I've found a plausible reason (I hope) to locate them indoors, and by making it clear that this is his imagined reworking of his parents' past he is able to be the omnipotent narrator I need him to be. The last draft ended in a rush. I was so glad to finish and get on to the next section that I killed off four key characters in the space of a few pages. It was all a tad melodramatic, so this time round I've added four new chapters, allowing the ending room to breathe. We reach the same conclusion but I hope it's more satisfying to the reader.

I've also intentionally worked on improving connections between the three stories - some obvious (repetitions of locations, seasons, events) and some less so (odd lines, emotions). I've added some more political speeches which might need toning down but I think  are necessary, and after reading Adam Hothschild's moving To End All Wars  remembrance has become an important theme.

So all in all, the view from up here is looking quite good. The sun is shining and I can see I'm closing in on the top, though it'll  take some effort to get there.  I still have narrative defects and character flaws to iron out, and I'm a long way off the language doing justice to the story I want to tell. But I've come this far, and nothing is going to stop me now.

I can't wait to get going again.

Blogging Against Disablism "Never forget where you came from"

I grew up in a world where disability was hidden. There were no accessible buildings, buses, or tube stations. Disabled people didn't feature in television programmes. They weren't comedians or actors.  Insults like "mong" and "spaz" were acceptable. I never knew any disabled people till I was into my teens and I did a bit of voluntary work with children. But outside the special clubs or holiday programmes, I never saw the kids I helped in day to day life. It was as if they were invisible or lived in a parallel universe.

When I was 18, I went to live in a L'Arche community and my life changed completely. In 1984, L'Arche, though 20 years old, was still a revolutionary concept. The majority of people with learning disabilities still lived in decaying, Victorian hospitals isolated from their families and the places they had been born into.  L'Arche started in France and soon spread round the world, to provide places for people to live in their own communities, supported by live-in assistants. It was in L'Arche that I first appreciated, disability is an impairment, with the right support, any disabled person can find their place in the world. And it was in L'Arche that I discovered the brutal horror that many people with learning disabilities experienced in long stay hospital.

Two of my friends John and Doris, had previously lived in a hospital in Caterham called St Lawrence's for over 30 years. Both had been sent there aged around 10, by professionals who advised their families it was for the best. Both John and Doris told me many many times, that such a life was not the best for them. John's disabilities were mainly associated with being able to understand his emotions and manage social interactions, yet he was highly intelligent. In the hospital, no-one believed in him, like all the patients he was considered "stupid". He hated the place. He really loved our home, being able to have his own room, to walk to the sheltered workshop, buy his own clothes, sit on the wall and chat to the neighbours.  But though he was able to escape the walls of St Lawrence's he never quite escaped the damage of institutionalisation. He was a gifted, sensitive man, yet he struggled to accept that he was capable of any achievement. He often created beautiful art, or rugs in the sheltered workshop,  but if you praised him his emotions would sometimes spill over, and he would lash out in anger at himself or others. Though he stayed in the community for over a decade, in the end he became unable to tolerate living in an environment that offered so much freedom. He found it harder to control his behaviour and the community found themselves unable to support him. John ended his days in a residential care home, whose more regimented environment provided the familiarity of the institution, though thankfully not the cruelty of St Lawrence's.

Doris, too was immensely damaged by St Lawrence's. I hated that place, she would always say, telling me stories of staff that never used her name, of never being allowed to keep any possessions, have her own money, and the greatest trauma of all, losing contact with her parents, and not being told when they had died.  She too, experienced bouts of anger (I was often on the receiving end), but unlike John, as she grew older, she was able to reconcile with her past. She proudly gathered a room full of possessions around her, made friends with the neighbours on the street, came to terms with the death of her parents, became a vital member of her local church and the grand dame of the community.  She was an avid lover of the Royal Family, and when she died, her coffin was piped down the High St to the same music as the Queen Mother. In death, she became the matriarch she should have been if she'd lived in another time.

L'Arche changed John and Doris, and it changed me too. After I left, I went to University, intending to be a Biologist, but after three years, I knew that wasn't the life for me. I began to apply for jobs in social care, and within months of leaving was back supporting people with learning disabilities. I've not looked back since.

I'm telling these stories today because today is Blogging Against Disablism Day.  A lot has changed in the last thirty years, and the majority of it has been good. Today people with disabilities are visible, buses and buildings are accessible. There are disabled actors, and comedians, disabled people appear in TV programmes. The world is a richer place because of it.

I'm  proud to have been part of the revolution that tore down the hideous institutions of the past and freed people with learning disabilities. I've been proud to stand beside disabled friends at rallies, to support campaigns for better access, opportunities for employment, independence. I've been proud to work with self-advocacy and campaigning organisations, and to help make self-directed support a reality. For most of the last thirty years, the journey has been hopeful, exciting, a chance to break down barriers. The last thirty years have been about progress, improvement, greater opportunity.

And yet, this year, I fear for my friends with disabilities like I never have done before. I fear about the impact of cuts and welfare reform that will curtail people's freedoms and independence. I fear about the effect of a relentlessly negative media which is resulting in an increase in hate crime. I fear about the minority of bigoted politicians who don't mind anyone knowing they think disabled people are  worthless. 

This year, it feels like this country is on the brink of turning back the clock thirty years: trapping disabled people into lives of poverty and grinding dependence at the top of a slippery slope which ends in  institutionalisation at best, and at worst a world that accepts eugenics is a reasonable social policy. It feels like we are on the brink of a nightmare, and it frightens the hell out of me. And yet, I don't believe the majority of people in Britain are like that. I believe we are better than that, as individuals, and as a nation. Today, we mustn't forget where we've come from, and the future we are still trying to achieve. Because, no matter how much progress we've made, there's still plenty more to be done. We mustn't let austerity stop us.

Which is why I'd like to urge everyone who reads my blog to stand up on the side of disabled people and get involved in some of the campaigns I support:

Please sign the Wow Petition and use twitter to spread the word.

Follow these brilliant bloggers to educate yourself about what is happening. Sue Marsh, Kaliya Franklin, Steve Sumpter,Centre for Welfare Reform

Contact your MPs and councillors to let them know you won't stand for it.

Write to your local press pointing out what is happening.

Stand up to every snide comment, wrong assertion and outright lie you hear about disabled people.

And never, ever, forget where we came from. We can't go back there. We just can't

After the Rapture

I don't often write sequels - but after I wrote this Friday Flash I have wondered from time to time what happened to the characters. I'm currently working on a collection of flash fiction and this story just appeared...

After the Rapture

The sun is beginning to set behind them. Orange beams radiate from the top of the copse streaking a  fiery path across the blue-grey ocean. Sylvie's back aches. Her knees ache. Her head aches.  When she comes to think about it, everything aches, and has been aching all day. This is not the rapture he has promised her. They have been waiting for two hours for nothing to happen.

            Jim, is as silent as he was this morning; this time he has not been able to find the words to help her keep the faith. This time she is beginning to doubt. She looks at him in side profile: long nose, blue eyes, fair hair, a face she has loved for over a year. Tonight for the first time the treacherous thought creeps in, why, exactly? What is it about him that has made her abandon her life, her mother, her friends? His smile? The attention he pays her? His passionate conviction that God has been speaking to him, and him alone? Perhaps it is all three, but now his certainties have been vanquished, he suddenly seems as full of human frailties as everyone else. Sylvie aches.  She has had enough. She wants to go home.

            She is about to stand up, and tell him enough is enough, when he leaps to his feet. "Do you hear it?" he says, his eyes shining. "Hear what?" All she can hear is the sound of the wind, the crash of the waves on the rocks below, the screeching of gulls in the air above them. "Listen," he pulls her to her feet, "Close your eyes, and really listen."

            "To what?"

            "The angels singing." 

            Sylvie is torn between non-belief and belief. After all this time, she hates the idea of finding him wanting, fallible, human. But the truth is,  "I can't hear anything."

            "Sssh," he says stroking her hair, bringing her close to him. She can hear his heart beating, he is breathing deep calm breaths. "Listen," he says again, "Have faith. Listen."

            Sylvie wants to have faith. She wants to believe. She closes her eyes, resting her head on his chest, letting it rise and fall with every breath he takes. And then, she hears it. Above the noise of the gulls, the crashing waves, the sighing wind, she hears it: the song of angels, pure, high, so beautiful she could cry with joy. She opens her eyes and sees tears in his. "I hear them."

            " They are calling to us. A final test."

            "What?"

            "We are the only ones left. Can you hear the thunder?" She nods, hearing the rumble in the distance behind them. "It's a sign. Everyone else is gone, the plagues and pestilence will be starting. Listen to the angels. We have to take this leap of faith." He walks to the edge of the cliff, extending his arm to her.

            "You mean jump?"

            "The angels will carry us up to heaven. We just have to believe."

            She looks at his radiant face, the rapture glowing in his eyes. She doubts no more. She takes his hand and steps forward.

            "I love you," she says.
            "I love you too." As she steps forward, he lets his hand drop. It is too late for her to stop, and she is falling through the air. The gulls screech, the wind sighs, the waves crash. The sky above her glowers with black clouds... And the angels have disappeared. Her last sight is of Jim standing, arms outstretched on top of the cliff, as if he is blessing her flight.

            Jim watches her descent, forming the account he will provide of the incident.She had more faith than me, he will say, She took a leap of faith. Her earthly body was dashed on the rocks. But I saw her lifted up to heaven. For the rapture is not for all of us, we sinners are left behind. She had more faith than me. And she leapt.

He will tell the police a different story.

Well Then

Well Then.

It looks like this is it.  Locks changed. Bags on the doorstep. No Way Back.

Whatever happened to...

"I'll always love you no matter what." Under an oak tree in Finsbury Park, sheltering from the rain storm. Shivering despite the warmth of your body. The sincerity of your blue-eyed gaze the only surety I needed.

"No-one, but  NO-ONE has EVER understood me the way you do." August; roof top. The pinky-blue sky still shimmering from the heat of the day. Talking, talking, talking. Telling each other things we'd never told anyone else. Leading to the moment, the breakthrough, the  point of no return.

"I want to grow old with you." The day I moved in, pulling my battered black suitcase behind me. You laughed at it's antiquity, picked me up and carried me over the threshold. I felt safe, held. I knew then, you'd never let me down.

I don't know how it happened. Truly I don't. I thought we were happy. That you loved me. Clearly I missed something important, something obvious. Like one of those frogs, who don't notice the water is boiling until it's too late.

So now, I am locked out. I can see you through the window back to me, ignoring my texts. My rickety suitcase sits in front of our blue door. Or to be more precise, YOUR blue door. There is no "our" any more. You've made that abundantly clear.

Well then. If this is the situation. What is to be done?

I look at the suitcase. I look at the window. I extend the handle, pick it up, and swing.

Logging In

Username: LeggyLaura
Password: Sexonlegs

Wrong Username/Email and password combination

Of course, that's Gmail. Silly me...

Username: LeggyLaura
Password:gransbirthday90

Wrong Username/Email and password combination

What? Wait a minute is that work? I know...

Username: LeggyLaura
Password:Danishot

Wrong Username/Email and password combination

You're kidding me? Facebook? It must be...

Username:LeggyLaura
Password:foreveryoursDan

Wrong Username/Email and password combination

FFS. I am so stupid...

Username:LeggyLaura
Password:Sexonlegs2

We've gotta check. Are you human?

Oh sod you twitter - I'm going to the pub

The Next Big Thing

I feel a bit of a fraud with this…I am nowhere near being a published author, I haven’t got an agent and have yet to self publish anything. (Though I do have a few short story credits to my name - see sidebar) However, my dear lovely twin sister Julia Williams who IS a best selling author (25th on the best seller list this week!) kindly tagged me in this game of The Next Big Thing. And since the questions she has given me are simply irresistible, I’m delighted to be joining in.

What is the title of your book?

Echo Hall.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

I was living in a remote hamlet in Northamptonshire a few years ago. Our home was a converted schoolhouse next to the parish church and graveyard. We were several hundred feet from our nearest neighbour and a quarter of a mile from the rest of the village. I’m a townie by birth and by nature, and (unsurprisingly for a writer) I’m blessed with an over-active imagination. I used to wake up in the pitch black night and imagine I heard voices, much to my husband’s amusement.* It used to scare the beejeesus out of me. In fact, I was such a scaredy cat, if Chris was away, I used to bring my then one year old son into bed to protect me. And one day I thought, what if you came to a remote country house, woke up in the middle of the night and such voices were real? What would they say and why? And that’s how it began.

*Though to be fair we once did wake up at 3am and there really were voices. It was the local police who'd been called out because the sheep from a neighbouring farm had escaped down the road and were holed up in our car park. Country life eh?


What genre does your book fall under?

I’m not a huge fan of pigeon holing writing, mine or anyone else’s. However, I’d say this book is unashamedly gothic, with a political twist. So I’d like to think I’ve invented a new genre – political gothic.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Ooh good good question. Hmm. I have three generations of a family (so I suppose it’s a bit of a family saga as well, see how much I don’t like pigeon-holing?) Let me think now.

Ruth, who is the 1990’s heroine is very calm and restrained. I think Carey Mulligan would be good. Her husband, Adam, is a little bit unreliable, Tom Felton, perhaps? Elsie in 1940’s is passionate and lively, and auburn, so definitely Karen Gilligan . Her husband Jack, as a young man could be Harry Lloyd. Jack is 76 in the 1990’s so the older version would have to be um Michael Gambon?  Jack’s cousin Daniel could be Daniel Radcliffe, though he’d wear a curly wig. I think Bonnie Wright would make a good Rachel in the previous generation, with maybe Benedict Cumberbatch as her husband Joseph (he too would need curly hair). Her sister Leah would be Emma Watson maybe, and Leah’s husband Jacob would be Skandar Keynes. And maybe their older versions would be Kate Winslet and David Morrisey?

Will your book be self-pubished or represented by an agency?

The aim is to get an agent and go the traditional route. However, if that fails I’ll definitely self-publish,

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Erm…dare I say 7.5 years? In my defence, for three of those years I was looking after pre-school kids. For the next 4.5 I was back at work with children aged 3-7. The kids are a lot older now, so the second draft has only taken just over a year. I’m optimistic I might finish a third draft in less time!

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I don’t dare do that. I would say I’ve definitely given a nod to Rebecca and Wuthering Heights. But I’ve been avoiding books like  The Little Stranger, or The Thirteenth Tale for fear of being influenced by them.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Well the original inspiration was imaginary ghosts, but after that I had to think about who the characters were and what they were doing in the house. And it quickly became about people living in times of war, so it is infused with the spirit of my grandmothers, my aunts and my mother who all lived during World War 1 and World War 2. My 1940's character Elsie shares a Liverpool background with my paternal grandmother, and like her, she was denied an education. It’s only a minor part of her story, but important to me none the less.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

My central theme is that unresolved conflicts spill over into the next generation and I have deliberately set family conflicts in times of war. So I hope it will appeal to anyone who is interested both in relationships and politics. I have a particular take on these issues, but  I hope that readers will be able to make their own minds up and disagree with me if they want.

I’ll be tagging the following writers for the Next Big Thing on their blogs next week....

Anne Booth, who is one of my oldest friends and who like me is unpublished. She’s a fine writer and I hope this will be rectified soon. She's written a brilliant (as yet unpublished) novel about nuns, and just completed her first young adult novel. The Hidden Hours is a great story about a young girl, her relationship with her grandma and Nazi Germany. And because she doesn’t have a blog, I’m giving her space to come here next week and tell you all about it.

Marc Nash is one of my Friday Flash compadres. He  has written and self published three novels AB,and E,

Not in My Name and Time after Time and 2 collections of Flash Fiction 52FF and 16FF. Marc is experimental, challenging, entertaining and has the widest grasp of the English language of anyone I know…Marc blogs over at Sulci Collective.

John Wiswell is another one of my fellow Friday Flash writers. He is currently working on a fantasy novel. John has the most surreal and creative imagination and his regular Bathroom Monologues are an absolute delight. He seems capable of writing in any genre and he always always makes me think.


I think I'm supposed to have four writers but one of the other people I asked had already done it, and the other wasn't ready to talk about her book. They're both great writers though so do look up Icy Sedgwick and Shelley Harris