I am now a Tree Follower

Last week I came across an amazing blog, via Twitter. One of the big guys at Gollancz had tweeted about a blogger he admires, and fully expecting a fantasy type blog featuring swords and dragons and other things that don't really float my boat (well, I do like dragons), I had a look. Wow! I was blown away by the blog called Loose and Leafy.

It actually comes from around Weymouth, which is where I lived for 27 years and I so wish I'd met the lady when I lived there - she sounds lovely. She's a Tree Follower, and the idea is that you choose a particular tree and then follow it for a year. You take lots of photos (or draw or paint it, I guess, if you can) and blog about it whenever you feel so inspired. What a lovely, lovely idea! I bet many of my followers will join me in this - several of you whom I've got to know spring to mind immediately. If you follow this link and then go back to her Feb 5th post, she explains a bit more about it there.

So today is my first Tree Follower blog, and I'll probably do one of these every couple of weeks or so. Although it could be more as I can see how exciting this could become, for me at least. The tree I've chosen is one that really chose me. As you may know, we moved house at the end of last year and finally bought our first house together. One of the three things that sold this house to me - and the most important one - was the beautiful garden. Not beautiful as in it's perfect and full of wonderful plants, which it isn't. But beautiful because it contains several mature trees and it's reasonably private, considering we're in Reading, and it's full of birds and squirrels. I really, really love it.

I was just a tiny tad disappointed when we examined the garden closely to discover what the trees actually were. Horse chestnuts, lime, hornbeam and sycamore I think. Not entirely sure as all the leaves are now gone, but definitely horse chestnuts and sycamore and the other two are debatable as I don't know them so well. I was disappointed because my favourite trees are the ones I grew up with in the two gardens of my childhood. These were, in the first garden: beech (all-time favourite), oak (with mistletoe), sweet chestnut, silver birches, Scots pines and rowans. The second garden had a giant yew (a real favourite of mine), a massive walnut tree (so big it had its main branch held up with a kind of pit-prop) and a large orchard. I spent hours and hours of my childhood playing, reading, daydreaming and scribbling under each of these trees, and I can still picture each of them perfectly even though it's over 40 years since I saw any of them. It's because of these trees that I grew up loving nature and believing in magic and eventually writing Stonewylde.

So when I realised that not one of these special trees featured in my new garden, I was a little disappointed but determined, nevertheless, to make friends with the new ones, all of which are subject to a Tree Preservation Order. Not of course that I'd consider chopping them down! Plus I have a veritable nursery of baby trees that I've been growing in pots for the past four years until such time as we could afford to buy a house. So I shall soon be planting some of these in the garden - and they include most of my old favourites.

The tree that has demanded to be chosen is the one nearest to the house - a massive horse chestnut. It's a whopper and I really hope it doesn't invalidate our house insurance. This has proved to be a bit of a long blog so I shall end now with a picture of a bit of it, and write more about it during the week. I'm on a real roll at the moment with Shaman of Stonewylde and I'm itching to get back to it. So here's a detail of Horse Chestnut, with more to come soon. Have a lovely week, everyone!

Log jams and blog jams

Well here I am, hard at work on the story planning board for Shaman of Stonewylde. As I've said before, with such a broad canvas and being the fifth and final book, it's very important that I can see the whole picture, or at least a big part of it. I need to make sure the balance is there, between the characters, the conflict, the setting and the action. No longer do I have the comfort of knowing that I can put that bit right in the next book - there won't be a 'next book'! All ends have to be tied and yet not in a trite, happy ever after type way. Tricky stuff, but I'm getting on with it and after Monday's doldrums, it's started moving again. Phew!

I realised that one of the issues was this handfasting scene I'm trying to write. Several of my lovely readers are going to tie the knot in Avebury in May, at our annual Stonewylde gathering. I rashly said to them a long time ago that when I'd written this particular scene in the book, I'd let them have the text to adapt it for their own handfasting ceremony. So Chapter 7, the handfasting one, caused a massive block in my thinking. I was trying to write it for Avebury, for the Stonewylde fans, instead of staying true to the story itself. Once I'd realised this and overcome that hurdle, the chapter flowed and I'm now on Chapter 9. I'm sure the four couples who want to use my ceremony in Avebury will be able to adapt what I've written, and the log-jam has now freed itself and all is flowing again.

Since last weekend's snow, we've had more. The little robin above was snapped by Mr B this morning as he tried to grab some breakfast. I thought robins were ground feeders and wouldn't use these type of seed feeders, but obviously I'm wrong. We have several robins who visit us for food, which again flies in the face of what I'd always believed: that the robin is territorial and guards his place fiercely. Maybe the snow puts paid to all that and in the end it's only survival that matters.

We've had lots more avian visitors this week - in fact it's become quite ridiculous. I counted eight blackbirds today, and there could have been more rustling around in the leaves at the end of the garden. They're very bold, and I know they're plain birds but I do love them. We've also had a crazy amount of blue-tits, so much so that I actually wrote a blue-tit into the story today. I suddenly realised what I'd done and it made me laugh. Just as Baba Yaga has also appeared, after the wonderful blog post that I linked to on Katherine Langrish's site.

This has been a week of discovering some really amazing blogs. Of course I can't allow myself to be distracted as I just don't have the time for that, but how can I resist? In my next post I'll do some links to these lovely sites so you can all go off and explore them. I feel quite inadequate when I see what some people produce on their blogs. I must say this was one of the reasons I stopped blogging during 2011 - I felt I had nothing to say that would be of any interest. Now I'm starting to think that actually, a bit of rambling may be okay after all. I guess all blogs are different; some erudite, some clever, some entertaining. Mine's like you're popping into my kitchen for a quick cup of tea while I take a break from writing the fifth book.

So on that note, I hope you like this very acrobatic woodpecker who was just showing off to all the pigeons and magpies who couldn't get to the birdfeeder. I have filled up the feeders now, by the way, in case you were wondering about the dearth of food. Our garden has been awarded two Michelin stars by the local birds, and I had to keep running out flapping my arms at the flock of seagulls (yes, in Reading!) who kept trying to land today. They mistakenly took us for a drive-thru. It's back to work for me (10pm but that's no reason to leave Sylvie on the hill and Yul in the Barn) and I wish you all a lovely weekend. On Monday - hopefully - I'll tell you about the wonderful blog from Weymouth of all places (my old home) that I discovered today via good old Twitter, and how I'm now a tree follower. Can you let yourselves out and shut the door behind you please? Bye!

Gloomy Monday

I was feeling like this poor little rose in my vase. Drooping, wilting, sorry for myself. It's been a miserable, dripping sort of day with slushy ice outside and try as I might all day, I've just been unable to get anything written. And as you all know, with the end of March my deadline, this is not a good state of affairs. I did all the usual displacement stuff: e-mails, overdue phone-calls, twitter, e-bay, other people's blogs, my own Stonewylde network - and I even popped very briefly into facebook. But I just couldn't get started on Shaman of Stonewylde, Chapter 7.

Out in my garden, all was dark and slushy. Even my room with a view didn't cheer me up nor inspire me. All I could see were my footprints in the slush where I'd been topping up the birds' food and water. Also, my chair is right by the radiator which was belting out heat, and this just added to my inertia and lethargy.


Malik, the brown Burmese, was still asleep in his basket - and this at 4pm! He'd been here all day after a quick, paw-flicking trip outside for a wee in the snow. I know the bedding in the basket looks a bit manky but they curl up together every night and love it. Please note the very considerate positioning of the basket - directly under the radiator. And there's more - the hot water pipes run underneath the basket so they have under-basket heating too.

So, nothing for it but to go for a walk. Mr B, who'd been working from home due to the snow, ice and fog, thought I was just a little mad and flatly refused to accompany me. I put on my pink wellies, hat and jacket and set off for the fields and woods that lie behind my house. Outside it was cold and damp, the sort that makes even straight hair go frizzy and sits on your eyelashes.


However ... I'm sure you can guess what I'm going to say next. Yes, as ever the sheer magic of nature got the better of me. Gradually, all those nasty grumpy, gloomy thoughts ('I can't write', 'I'm never going to hit the deadline', 'Might as well give up now', etc) melted away. I watched three crows messing about, found a lovely pine stick to add to my collection (sticks that may be suitable to make into wands), had a good old think about Chapter 7 and why I'm stuck, and even saw the almost full moon peering out from a chink in the freezing fog!

So now - I'm home, happy and ready to tackle Chapter 7! Mr B will have to cook tonight as it's after 7pm and I've a long evening ahead of me if I'm going to make up lost time. I hope you all have a lovely week and manage to get out and enjoy some of the freezing but still beautiful weather.

Bright blessings for Imbolc

Today is Imbolc! I'm sure many of my blog readers will know this already, but for anyone who perhaps doesn't, today is one of the old Celtic cross-quarter festival days. I send out a Stonewylde newsletter eight times a year on the festivals, and my latest one for those who haven't yet seen it can be found here. In this newsletter I've announced the title of the final book in the Stonewylde series (the one I'm currently writing) and also details of an award for which Shadows of Stonewylde has been longlisted - the David Gemmell Legend award. All very exciting stuff so do please take a look.

I'd also like to share a link to another post about Imbolc which you can read here. Only yesterday, I received a 'hot-off-the-press' copy of Kay's wonderful new book with a personal dedication inside and I was so very excited. I'll blog about this another day, but let me just say now that Kay Sheard's dictionary is absolutely fab and I thoroughly recommend it. I shall be using it in book 5 - say no more!

This is a quickie today as I took the day off from writing yesterday to celebrate my middle son Olly's birthday. He was 27, and all my children and some of Mr B's were here (nine of us) to eat an enormous dinner involving fajitas, nachos and birthday cake. It was a lovely but hectic day, with a lot of cooking, baking, hoovering and bed-making, but the evening was wonderful. Obviously no writing at all took place yesterday and I must catch up today.

So I shall leave you with an old-fashioned 'Riddle-me-ree' from Wild Roses, a huge Stonewylde fan and maker of fine jewellery (see her website here).

Riddle me ree - who am I?

My first is in Sylvie but not in her love

My second in solstice and starlight above,

My third is in moondance but not in sunlight

My fourth is in raven as black as the night.

My fifth is in Maizie but not in her son

My sixth is in shadows and will they have won?

My seventh in young magus and in his great love

My eighth in his sister, of the shaman beloved.

My ninth in dark waters into which they must dive

My tenth is in Heggy and five, always five ...

How cool is that - to have a special poem written? Thanks to Wild Roses, and a very lovely Imbolc to you all.

Mary Hoffman and serendipity

Stonewylde book 5 is coming on really well now. But my editor at Orion has been asking that dreaded question, 'Do you have a title yet? And what ideas do you have for the cover?' Yikes! I knew this would happen and I haven't yet decided on the title, although there are two main contenders at the moment. And that will dictate the cover art of course. I've set myself a deadline of Sunday night to decide.

In the meantime, I was struck this week yet again by the way that strange and weird things happen in life - call it serendipity, fate, coincidence or whatever. I think we all know that moment when the hair on our arms rises and we have evidence that there is some kind of pattern to life. This week, the parents of a very good friend of mine visited me for lunch. They wanted to see the new house and bring some things over.

Anyone who's read the re-published versions of Stonewylde will see that the series is now also dedicated to my friend, Debbie. She was my best friend from when we were thirteen year-olds at school together. She remained my closest and dearest friend over the years, even though we've both spent time living abroad and our lives were very different. She always expected me to be a writer one day, remembering my scribbles, dreams and imagination from younger days, and was one of the first to read the draft manuscript to my original books. She died in 2009 of cancer, aged 50. Her parents and I (who've also known each other since I was 13) remain close and now the initial shock and pain of bereavement has eased, we enjoy reminiscing about Debbie and the past.

They've finally sorted through all Debbie's things and have given me lots of her bits and pieces - always lovely, but it does bring back the pain. There are also a life-time of birthday and Christmas presents and little random gifts that I gave her and which they want me to have. Debbie was very sentimental - she kept everything I ever gave her. Her parents have gradually worked their way through it all and every time we see each other they give me another box or bag of stuff, including clothes and shoes. It may seem a bit macabre, but I get a lot of pleasure out of wearing Debbie's old things and I know she'd have approved. She always said she had better taste than me! When they visited on Tuesday they brought what they believe is the last box of things, and it contained various books I'd given Debbie over the years. I'd already had loads of books returned, so this was a surprise. And when I saw two of them I had that hair-raising moment.

Way back in the 90s I bought two books which really changed things for me at a time when I was "finding my path". One was called 'Sun, Moon and Stars' and the other 'Song of the Earth'. They were beautiful books - exquisitely illustrated and with wonderful text. They were children's books, but I've always loved children's books. These two books, which I spent so many hours browsing through, focus on mythology and legends about the world and the universe. They're so well researched and reshaped my feelings about nature and deity. There's one double-paged spread in 'Song of the Earth' called 'Mother Earth', with a picture of a sleeping woman - a goddess in the landscape. This is how I picture Stonewylde, and I know that these two books significantly contributed to my ideas for Stonewylde when the whole concept was still embryonic.

Debbie had such unwavering faith in the ultimate success of Stonewylde and always encouraged me, even when it all looked impossible. So a few years later, I bought her copies of both these beautiful books to thank her for all the support and encouragement she'd given me. I felt tearful when I looked in the box and saw that her parents had found them and returned them to me.

And then I went cold - firstly they're published by Orion which I hadn't appreciated, not having looked at my copies for years, and certainly not since signing my publishing deal with Orion. And then I saw ... they're written by Mary Hoffman! And only last week I put a link to that same lady's blog about the Fisherman's Wife!! Of course when I did that I hadn't realised that she's the author of these two favourite and much-loved books. What a strange world it is - her name leapt out at me and I couldn't believe the coincidence.

Mary, if you read this - thank you for all the pleasure these books gave to me, Debbie and also the many children I taught, who also loved them. Thank you for the inspiration I gained from them too. And are you going to the big Orion authors' party in February? It would be wonderful to meet you!

Monday is washing day

Photo courtesy of Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery

Does anyone remember that funny old song about Monday being washing day? It went through the whole week, ending in "Is everybody happy? You bet your life we are!" I thought of this as I bundled a load of whites into the washing machine this morning, prior to beginning Chapter 4. A king-size sheet, two pillow cases, a bath sheet and one of Mr B's white shirts - all were stuffed in the aperture, the washing liquid and fabric conditioner sloshed into the correct holes, the buttons pressed and hey presto - washing done. And the toaster hadn't even popped in the space of time it took me to do this. One hour and twenty-five minutes later it's done and ready to be put out to dry.

I never take my washing machine for granted, remembering only too well what it's like not to have one. Washing machines are one of the wonderful inventions that liberated women from some of the household drudgery. Without one it takes hours and hours a week to keep a family in clean clothes and bed-linen. I was aware of this when writing my books. At Stonewylde there's a Laundry House in the Village and of course the Hall has its own laundry. This is where Rowan worked and where Magus first approached her to ask if she'd do him the honour of being his May Queen at Beltane. You can imagine how time-consuming it must be for Villagers to do their laundry and how much more effort it takes to keep everything clean. But at Stonewylde the emphasis has never been on doing things quickly. When you think how long it takes to actually produce a shirt, for instance - grow and harvest the flax, spin and dye the fibre, weave the cloth, cut and sew the garment - the washing of it would also be done mindfully and carefully.

Two of my sons are about to move into a new house-share and have found somewhere lovely. Their new place of course includes a washing machine, and this made me wonder how many people in western society today don't have access to a washing machine, or failing that, a launderette? They're good around the house, but I don't think my sons would have a clue how to wash clothes by hand. I remember when they were born I washed everything by hand. It took a large chunk of my morning, every single morning, to wash the family's clothes and worst of all, the nappies! I boiled those in a big pan, having soaked them overnight in a bucket. All the washing was wrung out by hand, which was a difficult job, especially for the big things like sheets. I used to long for a mangle like the one I remember my grandmother using. Then the dripping items would be hung out on the line, and in the winter it really was a nightmare getting everything dry. I bet older readers will have similar memories.

As finances improved, we bought a second hand spin-drier - that was a dream come true even though it skidded across the floor if you didn't hold on tight. Then we stretched to an ancient twin-tub - it leaked horribly and still took ages, but it seemed like luxury! And finally we managed to get an automatic washing machine. Sadly by then the nappies had more or less finished, but the bliss of being able to put the washing on and then get on with something else - I shall never take that for granted. So this morning, after I'd put the washing on and then sat with my toast and coffee, I thought of the women of Stonewylde and their Laundry House.

As a post-script, I'd like to thank the Schools Liaison unit in Birmingham for their kind permission to use the photo above. I'm never quite sure about copyright for pictures on blogs - so many are beautifully illustrated but there's often no credit to anyone, and I wonder how that works with copyright? I'd be really interested to hear from other bloggers about this. Do you bother asking permission? I spent about ten minutes on the phone getting permission to use the photo above, and in some blogs I read there are loads of different pictures - it would take for ever to ask everyone concerned. Of course normally I try to use my own pictures but that's not always possible. I'd welcome any advice on this from anyone who knows.

Right - back to Chapter 4 then. The writing has started to flow, the threads have been picked up again (so tricky by the fifth book as there are so many of them) and it's all happening in my head. Phew! Have a good week, Stonewylders!

The Fisherman's Wife - by Mary Hoffman

I do hope I'm not breaching any blogging etiquette here, and I'm also doing something that I vowed never to do - just provide a link to another interesting blog because I don't have time to create one myself today! I hope Mary Hoffman doesn't mind, and I hope you all don't either. It won't happen very often I promise, but this blog of hers seemed so timely in view of some of my blogs moaning about things not happening fast enough for me. I'm now sitting here feeling a bit guilty and know I'm very much in danger of becoming fisherman's wifely in my aspirations at times. But like Mary says, not for fortune so much as fame. And by that, I mean wanting people to read and love your creations, not ghastly celeb type fame.

Anyway, here's the link to this excellent blog, and I hope you enjoy it. Have a lovely weekend, Stonewylders! I'm about to start Chapter 3 now - whoo hoo!

http://steelthistles.blogspot.com/2012/01/fisherman-and-his-wife.html

Thanks to Mary Hoffman for her wonderful blog, and to Katherine Langrish, whose blogsite this is posted on.