I Made A Speech... And It Went Well!

The 18th May 2013 was a special day - it was my little sister Amy's wedding. She married Ben, her soldier, at Sandhurst Military Academy in Berkshire, and it couldn't have been better. Really, it was perfect, magical, a fairy tale of a day.

Except... I was giving a speech.

For a pretty traditional wedding, this was not a usual occurrence, but since Amy had given a rather wonderful speech at my own wedding ten years earlier, it was my turn to do the same. As maid of honour, this was an unexpected 'treat' for the assembled guests, who were prepared for the father of the bride, the best man, and, of course, the groom himself to stand up and speak, but who were not aware that I was going to say something too. 

Oh dear.

Oh dear indeed.

A speech, and a surprise one - for most of the friends and family gathered - at that.

The last time I gave a speech was when I was the school music prefect 14 years earlier. And it wasn't particularly good (it was also incredibly long). But I wanted to do this for Amy who had already made me promise that I'd keep it short.

No fear there; this would be a record-breakingly short speech! Or at least that was the plan. But when I read back through the first draft I realised I had got carried away again. Too many words, most of them not needed anyway.

In the bin.

The second draft was a lot shorter, probably less than a third of its original length, but when I read this one through there was no spark to it, no truth. No life.

No.

It had to be better than that. 

So instead of rehashing this poor speech for the third time, I disposed of it in the best way I know how (DELETE! DELETE!) and began again at the beginning.

I had an idea of how to get it just right - not too long, not too dull.

I'd make it a story about two little girls who grew up together and had shared memories about their childhood. 

It worked, too.

By treating such a difficult and personal task as I would any of my writing, I was able to distance myself enough to get the words down, but allow myself to be close enough to make the story real.

And Amy's tearful reaction tells me I got it right after all. 

Begin As You Mean To Go On: Children and Reading

It's one of my big things, something I'm particularly passionate about, and something I've been able to work personally on since the birth of my daughter, Alice, on 10th October 2010.

Children and reading.

Reading to children and with children, letting them choose their own books, watching their excited faces when they learn to turn the pages by themselves, or when they walk into a library for the first time.

It makes a difference. It shapes their lifelong love - or otherwise - of books, and therefore it's an important part of growing up. It can make them who they become. I know it did with me.

The best part is, it can be shared with one or both parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, teachers, or anyone else come to that, but it can also be a solitary pursuit, and there's enjoyment to be had in reading alone as well. That's a lesson in itself.

I have incredibly clear memories of sitting with my mother and listening intently as she read from one of my many story books. Time together, peaceful and serene and perfect. There was a library not too far from our house, and once a week or so we would walk there to exchange old books for new. I had a special book bag, and collected badges that the librarians had on their desk.

Books for birthday presents were some of the most exciting, more cherished than toys or clothes, and book tokens... Well, the magic was endless when I opened an envelope and those fluttered out! My own 'money' to buy my own books with.

I wanted Alice to experience that joy, so when I was still pregnant, I collected as many books as I could, and stored them on shelves in her nursery, ready for the time when she would start looking through them. Picture books, cloth books, hardback, paperback, classics and new creations - she has hundreds.

And as soon as she was born, I read to her. She was a few hours old, the hospital visitors had gone, and I fished a tiny little book of nursery rhymes out of my hospital bag. That night, the tiny baby in my arms heard all about the twinkling stars, baa-ing black sheep, and an egg that no one could fix.

It went on like that. I read to her whenever I could.

Now, at just over two and a half, Alice loves her books. Whenever we go on a car journey, she must have at least three to leaf through, even if we're only popping to the shops. We read together every day - I read the 'real' story to her, and then she 'reads' her own version to me. When she goes to bed, she asks for some books, and she sits poring over them until she finally nods off.

I can't ask for more than that.

Poem: The Sea

The Sea

The waves crashed against the cliffs

And spray flew into the air.

It copied the flight of the gulls above

Who circled without a care.

 

The water moved with an ancient rhythm,

And was deep and dark and rough.

The pull of the moon became stronger still,

It would never be enough.

 

The tide came in and swallowed the beach

Leaving patterns on the ground.

The pebbles surrendered to the force,

And followed without a sound.

 

As the world spun round the sea retreated,

Moving softly away.

It carefully, gently, uncovered the stones,

 And then dwindled with the day.

Virginia Woolf... And Me

I was recently asked who my favourite author was. 'Richard Laymon,' I immediately answered, sticking to my horror roots, the genre that has brought me a modicum of success and which, for those who are my readers, I am best known for. And it's true, Richard Laymon is my favourite horror author, and one of my biggest influences. I don't write in his precise, concise style, but I like to think he gave me some useful clues about horror, about the blood and guts of it, and I try to remember what I've learned through reading his work when I'm writing a new story.

But when I really think about it, really sit back and look back at the books I've read and the essays I've written and the way in which they have all shaped me and made me the person I am, there are two authors who stand out above the rest. One is Enid Blyton, and to her I shall be eternally grateful for pushing my childhood imagination into new places - picnics with the Famous Five, clambering up the Faraway Tree with Moonface, laughing at the various pixies and fairies and woodland elves who got up to mischief... It was wonderful. And I owe her at least a blog post in the near future.

It is, however, Virginia Woolf to whom I turn today. I first discovered her by accident in the school library. Browsing, not sure what I was looking for, I closed my eyes and stuck out my hand, grasping at the first book I touched. It was Orlando. I read the first page and I was hooked. The first sentence ("He - for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it - was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.") intrigued me, as all good first sentences should - why? who? how? where? when? WHAT?

I've read all of Woolf's works, from The Voyage Out to Between The Acts, as well as the short story collections, and loved every word. Everything. There is such poetry in her prose, each word laden with meaning, even as they are flowing and beautiful.

This is the style which, without meaning to (at least not consciously), I have tried to replicate in my writing. In particular, my unpublished novel At Peace With All Things is heavily influenced by Woolf's writing style. It's the minutiae of the moment that she captures, draws out, and make into something worth noticing.

My favourite Woolf novel, if it is possible to have a favourite, is To The Lighthouse. This at first seems a sparse thing, a simple observation of events over two days set a decade apart, one family who spend part of their holiday looking forward to a trip to the local lighthouse. But it's more than that. Of course it is. There is nothing simple in Woolf's writing, nothing is as it first appears.

It's all about moments. Special or mundane, they make up life, and they are all precious. They all lead onto the next, but they leave the person experiencing them changed in some way. As Virginia Woolf herself says, "Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works." This novel allows Woolf to simply write, to get everything she is thinking and feeling down on paper, all the while attributing it to her characters. It is freeing. And the result is wondrous.

And now, here is my attempt at a vignette written in Woolf's style. I'm still learning...:

An owl and a pussycat... They are staring at me. Both of them, just looking, glaring down from the rooftop above me. And I, unsure and unwise, stare right back. Not one of us blinking. Not one of us moving. Not one of us even breathing for long, long seconds that last for eons. 

The moon is thick tonight, fat and round and near yellow as the sun as she hovers above us. She has her eyes tight shut against the world, not caring about us down here. And why should she? She is a queen in the heavens, the stars her subjects, loyal and stubborn and loving for all that. If I were her, I wouldn't deign to cast my shuttered eyelids towards the earth either. 

I would stay regal and aloof and apart from humanity.

Just like the owl. Just like the cat. Perched together up on those dark red tiles, shaded by the night, lit by Her Majesty the moon.

The cat moves first, and for that I am glad. I may not have won, but neither did I lose. That is Puss's position, last place, first to give in to the temptation of the night. She stretches, shivers, stands and flicks her tail as though to say she meant to stop playing the game we didn't know we were playing. I let her go. I could call out, berate her, tease her, insult her for walking away from me and the owl and the moon who isn't looking.

I don't. The hour is too late, and the night is too quiet for any sound to be heard. 

But I do watch her disappear across the roof, I watch her drop down to the fence and then down again to the pavement, scrabbling at the wooden slats with her claws, balancing herself as she plummets. She lands on her feet, as is to be expected. And then she is gone, black against the blanket of darkness, eyes shining for a moment, tiny tip of tongue poking from the soft lips. 

I turn my attention back to the owl, hoping to let it know that it can go now if it likes, that I will win this, that I, with nowhere to go and no one to see, can stay here all night, staring upwards, my neck tense and knotted, my eyes misty with the strain of looking. 

But while my thoughts were elsewhere, the owl too has gone. 

I didn't even hear it go.

And I am left, my head turned upwards, my eyes scanning the scant sky. 

Waiting.

Sideshow - A Forthcoming Anthology

Sideshow, edited by Rob M. Miller, is an anthology with a difference.

Yes, it's full of wonderfully horrific short pieces of fiction from writers including Phil Hickes, Carole Gill, and, well, me. Yes, it's got a suitably macabre and mysterious cover designed by the talented Melissa Stevens. Yes, it's on its way and will be with us, haunting us, very soon...

But that's not all. With this anthology, you get extras; little snippets of stories that explain (or not) what really happened. Or what might have happened. Or what never happened at all. Call them bonus features. Call them free gifts. Call them just one more thing to add to the nightmares. Call them what you will, but enjoy them - they're for you.

Full details can be found on the anthology's own website: http://sideshowanthology.wordpress.com/

And here is the complete table of contents:

You Pedal And You Pedal And You Pedal...

Ever feel like that?

You pedal and you pedal and you pedal... maybe you pedal some more, perhaps a little more after that. But eventually, finally, you get tired. You have to stop. Of course you do. It's wearing and wearying and it takes up all your energy.

If you're not getting anywhere, that is.

If you're going nowhere after all that pedalling, it's not only tiring, it's frustrating and it's saddening and it feels like a waste of time.

It can put you off pedalling completely.

You'll sit on that bike, push one foot down with a sigh that hurts, and wonder why you're bothering. Then you'll stop and it'll feel good. Really good. It'll feel so good that you won't want to start again, and you'll continue your life without any pedalling at all, and you won't mind.

Ever feel like that?

I do. Stories stick and chapters freeze, and when they do I keep writing because I feel guilty if I don't. I keep typing one word after another, and it's wearing and wearying and I know I'm not getting anywhere. I know I'll just delete the words and replace them with fresh ones, or I'll forget about it all together and consign it to the story graveyard of my hard drive. Not a great feeling, but a familiar one.

And it feels good to give up sometimes. It's better for you, and for the story. Sometimes stories are just no good, and that's okay because we're not perfect, and not everything we do is brilliant or worthy of publication.

Not everything we do is going to be our best work. It doesn't work like that - after all, how can you have best if you don't have worst? There has to be something to compare it to!

Leave it long enough, though, and I have a feeling you'll get back on that bike, and you'll pedal again. Leave it long enough, and I have a feeling you'll get somewhere.

Don't push your writing - it's no good for anyone. Enjoy it, and the words will flourish.

Flash Fiction: Immortality

"I am a painter," Mr Archer would say. And they would laugh and ask how much to do their living room. Always. Sometimes, if he was hard up, or bored, or just to shock them, he would give them a price and do the work if they agreed. Sometimes. But most times he was busy trying to become immortal. Picasso, Rembrandt, Da Vinci... All different, but they all had one thing in common; their names would never be forgotten. And he wanted the name Archer to be added to that list.

Of course, there were a few others things that they had in common, and one of these was that they were actually good at what they did. Mr Archer, sadly, was not. But that did not deter him. It didn't bother him at all.

He painted his friends' wall and he painted his fresh canvases and time marched on.

One day, a hot, summery day full of promise and hope, where the air smelled of sunshine and the world was good, Mr Archer began to feel that walls and canvases were not enough. He needed a bigger platform to showcase his work; people were simply not noticing what he was doing. Not the right people, anyway. He gathered together his house painting brushes and his artists' oils and went for a wander, to see what he could do. To see what he could paint.

He walked into town and looked at the large buildings, the hotels, the schools, the hospital, but they weren't big enough and he dismissed them. He needed more. He knew exactly where to go. The cliffs. The cliffs were a big enough space for him. And he knew just what he would paint as well. He could see it perfectly in his head. The town, the county, the country, the world would see it, and finally they would know him.

Mr Archer, as secure as he was in his own talent, had no knowledge of cliffs. Looking down from the edge it seemed easy enough. There were footholds and ledges all the way down. He could do it. Only... he couldn't. Not really. Although he tried. And he got some of the way. And he even managed to put paint on the cliff face. Just a little bit.

No one ever discovered just what Mr Archer had wanted to depict in that lonely, dangerous place. Some thought it was a portrait, some a landscape. Of course, no one could ever be proven right (or wrong), but that didn't stop the town from creating an annual contest for people to guess what Mr Archer's creation was. The Archer Prize was highly sought after, and to win it was to be lanuded for a whole year, until the next contest. There was a cup. There were names engraved on it.

And Mr Archer finally got his wish; his name would forever be known. What he hadn't realised was that he had to be dead before he could be immortal.

©Lisamarie Lamb 2013