Legendary Authors

Ghost writing

 

No, we're not hanging out by a disused garage because it's fun, but because it's on a stretch of supposedly haunted road in Aberbeeg and we used it in Lynx's novel, so we figured we oughta visit it. We didn't see the ghost of the murdered policeman, but maybe we need to return in the dead of the night for that. We then tried to find our way to a haunted manor house, Llancaiach Fawr, but took the wrong road and a road that wasn't on our map. We’re sure Bargoed’s really nice, but not when you’ve circled it three times. Two hours later, we finally got there and there was a wedding on so we had to wait for all the poshly dressed guests to flee through the pouring rain so we could take our photos. Thanks to mum for getting lost with us and for braving the torrential rain so we could get atmospheric photos of an abandoned filling station – couldn’t have done it without you. Is there a better way to spend a Saturday? Possibly not.

Speaking of novels, we've now finished ours. They took just two months - a record for us and also a shame ‘cos we really loved writing them. Now the redrafts begin after we've finished redecorating our back room in signal red. Cat's novel was about demons breaking out of hell, which gave us a good excuse to buy a metal compilations album, so she could set it to a metal soundtrack. Alice Cooper's Brutal Planet' is perfect and if the book’s ever made into a film, we plan to use it over the end credits. You listening Tim Burton? Lynx's was about ghost hunters, hence the visiting haunted places and was set to an Emo rock soundtrack, mostly My Chemical Romance (our favourite band) whose songs are mostly about death. We didn’t finish ‘til quite late, so we celebrated by…checking our snail tanks for eggs and going to bed. Rock and roll. Does anyone have a way of celebrating finishing a novel? We've also been writing lots of short stories - 3 deadlines in September & 2 in October. One of our short stories recently got into the top 15 of a competition and we got a rave review from the judge, which was good. We must be improving if our rejections are getting better.

Oh and we recently acquired a corn snake. We were looking after him for our cousin and now he (the snake) is staying. Not keen on feeding him defrosted rats, but he's a cute little thing and now lives in our spare bedroom, which houses our iguana and 11 African Land Snails. Only 8 snails are ours, the other 3 belong to our sister's school and we look after them in the holidays.

Just want to say a quick congratulations to our mum, who starts her new job on Monday. She finally quit teaching after 19 years in the same school. So good luck mum, you’ll be brilliant at it.

C L Raven (knackered and paint-splattered)

New Edition, New Me!

I am a firm believer that coincidences mean something, though I'm not always sure what. I couldn't quite believe it then, when I realised the “remarkable” coincidence that I should have a make-over (with new, dramatically shorter hairstyle) at the same time as the new edition of Remarkable Everyday was being given a make-over in the form of a new cover.

BEFORE

AFTER

While I will do a lot in the name of marketing (take a look at my blog at www.writelink.co.uk/blogs/sarah_james for a few of the wackier examples) even I will drawn the line somewhere. This coincidence was not at all planned then, pleased though I am with the results of both.

In fact, my own “redesign” with short hair is more a celebration of successfully managing to lose five stone over the past year. And, if I'm honest, there is also perhaps a small acknowledgement that with a son at school I am no longer as young as I used to be so should start to look more my age (21, of course!).

Anyway, as coincidences go, this one isn't bad, as my website has also recently been revamped. This too has been on the cards for a while (particularly since my sister commented that it looked “rather eighties”) but my web designer, aka my sister, has only just had time to do it. Still, with the official launch of the new Remarkable Everyday anthology today, it does seem like the perfect time to launch my new website too. So when you've bought your copy of the new edition (okay, so I'm cheeky), don't forget to check out my new website at http://sarah-james.co.uk .

Puzzled by Pride

 

Of late I’ve been pondering the notion of pride, prompted in part by recent media shots of proud parents cooing over their offspring's A-Level results, and Jamaican citizenry partying after Usain Bolt's' fantastic medal winning feats (no doubt much the same has been going on in Michael Phelps’ hometown, and those of the many less famous British medal winners.)

I'm not averse to feeling a spurt of pride from time to time, but when I examine it, it always troubles me. For I suspect that pride has less to do with the endeavor of the person whose achievement triggers it, than with our selves. When we beam broadly and proclaim, "I'm proud of you!" isn't it really ourselves that we are celebrating by proxy, our chest puffed-up on the strength of the other's success, a success now claimed, in part at least, as our own?

"I'm so thrilled for you, you've done so well, it's truly wonderful, well done you!" is surely fulsome enough praise. What is it, I wonder, that make so many of us opt instead for the words, "I'm proud of you!"? I suspect it is that pride has something to do with ownership and possession. In declaring my pride in another, I'm claiming the other as my own. When I declare that I am proud of MY son/daughter, MY country, MY team, I swell up, bask, and preen myself in the reflected glory of their success. Indeed, in effect, I claim a share of it as my own.

And what’s wrong with that, you might say? Well, if I'm entitled to feel pride at what my kith and kin get up to, then am I not also entitled to feel shame, when they fall short, when they chicken out, when they 'let the side down'? Pride, it seems to me is essentially both possessive and judgmental, one side of the coin of conditional love.

Pride in one's country seems odder still. After all, it's a mere accident of birth and geography that makes me British, or American, or Sudanese (I'm half-Irish by the way) so why should I feel pride in my nationality, rather than simply love, or affection, towards my country's scenery, its values, and its people?

Pride in one's children seems a somewhat different proposition because how they turn out is, in part, down to us parents. However, god knows how you measure your own input into the process of what becomes of your kids; perhaps it's safer to let them hand out the brickbats or bouquets in their own good time; hopefully, when old enough and suitably chastened by the challenge of parenthood themselves. And may I suggest that when they start dishing out the plaudits and the complaints, we have the  good sense to take both with a large pinch of salt.

I am more comfortable with the expression of pride in one's own performance and achievements than those of others. My novel, 'Listening In' will be published in 2009, I'm proud of that fact; it's been a long struggle, hard won. Proud too, of the short story that was published earlier this year. I have a right to say these things, the ideas were mine, I did the work, and I kept faith in the result. I'm hugely grateful to others (and they know it) for encouraging me, for having faith too, and for caring about me through the various disappointments and rejections I've endured along the way, and I'm grateful too, to various friends and relatives for helping me celebrate my small, but precious, recent success.

I almost wish I could end these musings here. The trouble is I keep coming up against a serious flaw in my argument that gnaws at my comfort like a persistent midge. Many children, often long grownup, admit that they still yearn, just for once, to hear a parent declare that they are truly proud of them. Perhaps I’ve been missing the point. Perhaps being claimed (willingly and happily) by those above us in the scheme of things is the ultimate form of approval, the need for which goes deep in our psyche? After all, how can we ever repay those who gave us life, for bringing us into being, even though, as the saying goes, ‘the night my parents made me, their minds were not on me’? Of course it is not the mere fact that our parents fucked with intent, or casual disregard, and thereby brought us into being, that matters so much, but that they stuck around and had a serious go at making a fist of the most difficult job on earth, being a parent.

Perhaps when at last we hear a parent say, “I’m proud of you,” it is tantamount to them saying, ‘It’s ok, it was all worthwhile,’ and, on hearing those words, we feel the burden of their sacrifice weighing just a little lighter on our shoulders.

KC Chandler
(www.myspace.com/kcchandler)