BLOGGING OVER - BACK TO WORK

So now after blogging a couple of posts I am about to disappear again back into my world of fiction.

My two year MA course is almost at an end and I have my dissertation to write for September. That will be a 90 minute script based on my belief that I am not a good fiction writer but I have proved to myself that I can, at least, write for the screen. I'm not actually sure if that's true but I'm concerned that the jury is still out on fiction writing this far into the course and I'm still no where near writing that novel that I've always wanted to do.

Perhaps it's not that I can't write fiction but that it takes me too long to get to grips with what I'm trying to do with a story. My tutor Graham Joyce is both a brilliant and successful award winning novelist. He's written the first draft of his new novel in the time it has taken me to battle with the right 4,500 words that I'm looking for. His post linked above gives an idea of how hard it is to get a story as you want it.

Graham also makes clear that's it's good to get some away from the story for a while. To give it some space. "Quarantine" he calls it. That is why I'm blogging today. I thought that if I did something completely different, then when I pick up my story again, it will somehow become miraculously clear what needs to be done.

It's a short piece called Granny's House which is about a woman who was abandoned by her parents and brought up by her grandmother. When she has to clear the house after her grandmother's death, she discovers the secret of her past.

I've been all around the houses, round the block, up the street a couple of times, and then took a blast up the M1 with this one. It started out as crime story- my favourite genre - but it soon became apparent that I had the basis for a novel and, frankly, too many twists, too many characters and not enough substance. It was with a very heavy heart, some words of encouragement from Graham, and after my break in Italy that I eventually got back to it after my very first bout of writer's block. I had to get back to the drawing board. The story also involved four generations of women so some grannies had to go.

I think I've simplified it enough now to get cracking further on with it. Gone is the murder plot, a daughter I put in there, and a great grandmother. It's not so much of a crime story now as a mystery. I've still got lot of redundant information in there I'm sure but it's still quite hard to see the wood for the trees.

Added to my misery is the fact that I only have a week to hand in this last assignment and I've just accepted a job in a local newspaper office for 40 hours a week, starting tomorrow, which means I'll be in the office all day and hoping I have the energy to be creative when I get back home in the evening after 6pm.

The one regret I think I'll have about this course when it does eventually end, is that I haven't had the time to devote to just fiction writing. Perhaps when the pressure of writing for a grade to achieve a qualification is over, then I'll relax more about my writing and stories like the one above will come to me more easily.

MEMORIES OF A TUSCAN ART TOWN

It's been more than three weeks since my last blog post. I felt some words of explanation were necessary for my absence for those people who still follow Tea and Cigarettes.

I was pretty whacked out after the election. During the weeks leading up to it, I had work, study, and campaigning to do. That meant long days in the office, evenings at my computer, and weekends out and about. I must admit I was more worn out than I thought, and heavily disillusioned at the end of it all, and so I've had a very long break, a holiday, and lately some quality time with my fiction writing.

I was so confident at not winning the Louth and Horncastle seat that I booked a holiday in Italy for me and my other half for when the election was over. We had a few lovely days in Pisa, and while there we visited my Italian family in Cecina Mare which is about a 45 minute train journey. Hampy had never been to Florence, Firenze, and the city - an hour by train from Pisa - was too beautiful to miss during the trip.

My absolute favourite part of the holiday, though, was when we visited Palaia (pictured above). This medieval town set in the hills of Tuscany was a place I visited in my early 20s with Daughter No 1 when she was a baby. My mother's eldest sister lived there and I recall being quite enchanted by it. She was married to the town chemist and lived in the Old Pharmacy - or Farmaccia Antica. It was a beautiful old building.

I never met my uncle from Palaia because he died before my visit. I recall arriving at the house with my mother and being led to an insignificant door in the street. Inside was like a palace. Once through the door, an old courtyard was revealed with two huge staircases running each side of it. There were two parts to the house which seemed to go upwards and outwards forever.

My aunt was an artist and had converted a room upstairs into a studio. She showed me her work and I was very impressed that I shared the same genes as this talented woman. I was given a lovely room to stay in. When I laid on the bed and looked up, I noticed the high ceiling for the first time and it was painted by my aunt in the style of Michael Angelo when he painted the Sistine Chapel.

I never forgot that place, or the old cellar where the kitchen was, with the Aga, and my aunt making us fresh focaccia bread for breakfast, but I never had a reason to return. My aunt died some years ago. My mother has been gone for almost 10 years now.

My aunt's daughter, who was only 13 years younger than my mother, further converted the Villa when she took it over. I met her once during that visit. She had a huge old key to one of the local churches and she took me one evening to show me how beautiful and how old it was - the same age as Lincoln Cathedral which, in the year of my visit, had celebrated a 1000 years of existence. I also remember the view something like the above as we walked back to town.

I'm told that the Farmaccia Antica is now open to the public and is a restaurant and art gallery. Sadly, my cousin also died recently and I never got to revisit her. Her eldest son now runs the business. We don't really know each other. We met once, briefly, almost 30 years ago. My plan was to just visit this old memory and if I met my cousin and we got the chance to chat then that would have been great. Sadly, the building was closed on the day of our visit so we had a look around and then headed back to Pisa - 26 miles away.