WHEN TO BREAK THE RULES OF WRITING

SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO USE A MIRROR!

Most of us writers try to avoid the use of a mirror in describing a character's appearance. Too hackneyed, the sign of a poor writer, unimaginative, we're told. In fact, it's almost a rule.

But occasionally, as in my current book (working title: ME, DINGO AND SIBELIUS) it seems like the best, most effective way.

Charlie, the main character, is the 'ugly duckling' in a family of beautiful females. Now 32, she's the only one who resembles her beloved Dad, who drowned when she was 16 and whom she still grieves for.

In describing her as she glares at her reflection in the hall mirror, I'm therefore describing two people, Charlie and her father. As the book is written in the first person, I'm also trying to convey her frustration and despair that she is the odd one out, the one who's ignored, the one who's still a virgin.

Here's the relevant section:

In the hall mirror I glare at my reflection in disgust. No one else in the family has inherited Dad's genes. The hair, uncontrollable without half a pot of gel and half an hour of blow drying. The snub nose and wide mouth. The golden brown eyes that practically disappear when I smile. The lack of height.

Georgie and Rosie have blue eyes and slender figures like Mum. They also have Mum's long golden locks, like Rapunzel in the fairy stories It's too soon to tell with Daisy, only ten weeks old and still bald as a coot. At the moment she looks like Harry Hill without the spectacles but no doubt she'll metamorphose into something blonde, slim and elegant like the rest of the Churchill clan.

I turn away from the mirror. What's the use? I'm stuck with what I am. The ugly duckling. The runt of the litter. The one that's nearly but not quite.

I'm always conscious of potential criticism but sometimes it just feels right to ignore the rules.

SEVENTY - THE AGE WHEN YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU LIKE!

The idea came one August morning when I stopped to chat with a neighbour in our village High Street. After a week of rain, suddenly we were enjoying one of those absolutely perfect days that make living with our English climate so worthwhile. A cloudless sky, the trees touched with gold, the only sound that of a combine harvester gathering in the summer crop.

I was on my usual dash for the daily paper, she was dressed for walking, complete with water bottle and binoculars.

'That's what I should be doing on a day like this,' I said, 'but I ought to mow the lawn and tackle the weeds.'

'Oh, I don't do Oughts,' she said airily. 'I'm too old for all that.'

And that started me wondering. At what age are we entitled to give up on Oughts? At seventy? Surely that significant birthday gives us a good excuse for relinquishing a few Oughts? And then a few more each year?

Or why not get rid of the lot, all in one mad defiant gesture?

It's not as if Oughts bring us pleasure - oh, perhaps afterwards there's a fleeting satisfaction at a job well done, but they're such dreary things.

Of course, after getting rid of them there's a vacuum to be filled, so much spare time, so many empty days.

And that started me thinking about all the simple pleasures that could take their place, and the amazing number of them that are actually free.

From there I began considering those who might gain the most from a No-Ought philosophy. Older people. People living alone. People on limited incomes.

So . . . In my notebook I now have the first jottings for a new non-fiction book, a guide for those like my friend who believe that our only Ought should be that we ought not to do Oughts.

GENRES, CLASSIFICATIONS AND CATEGORIES - THE WRITER'S MINEFIELD

It's easy to classify your books if you write a police procedural novel or a time travel fantasy or a conventional romance where two young people meet, hate and misunderstand each other but fall into each other's arms in the last chapter.

But how do you classify a book which crosses over from one genre to another, or even a third - and (in the case of my latest, The Family on Pineapple Island) can be read by parents to their youngest children or can be read by parents and grandparents for their own enjoyment?

Most of my novels are difficult to restrict to one genre. Take 'Affair With An Angel' for example. The heroine, a feisty young journalist, finds herself in a strange place that bears a slight resemblance to the Costa Brava. Or it could be Disneyland. Or the delirious fantasy of someone who loves pink.

How did she get there? Is she dreaming - or has she died? She's surrounded by others equally bewildered, some who've arrived by cruise boat, others by train from Mumbai, some even on a magic carpet. And who's this angel who's been appointed her personal guardian? Golden haired, dressed in white jeans and sporting a medallion, his name he tells her is Trevor. Whoever heard of an angel called Trevor?

It's a romance of sorts. A mystery. Science fiction? Whichever, it caused me quite a headache when I tried to choose the right genre.

But stories that wander from classification to classification are the ones I enjoy writing. Even if they leave me with yet more puzzles when I've completed the last page.

BRINGING OUR ANCESTORS BACK TO LIFE

Inspired by a battered old case of photos and documents belonging to my grandmother (long dead) I took out a year's subscription to Ancestry.co.uk and discovered more about her amazing family - composers, musicians, artists, singers and dancers, theatre managers, actors and circus trapeze artists.

I had an inkling before I investigated and the search proved so exciting that it kept me obsessed for the full twelve months (and since).

My biggest regret is that I was barely out of my teens when my grandmother died and I was far more focussed on the opposite sex than on mouldy old family history. If only I'd talked to her! She knew these people.

My first sketch

Getting there but still a long way to go!

Her grandfather, my great-great-grandfather Joseph Bryan Geoghegan, who sang, played, managed theatres, wrote pantomimes and composed songs that are still sung and recorded worldwide today.

Her father, Sydney Bird, a burlesque performer and trapeze artist (who performed in the same theatres and at the same time as Liverpool comedian John Bishop's great grandfather).

Her brother, Sydney, trapeze artist and star of the show until he fell to his death at the age of 16, a tragic event that was recorded in newspapers throughout the UK.

Her sister Bessie, music hall and circus singer and dancer, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 21.

And all the others.

I've got a lot of information through Ancestry.co.uk but facts, sepia photos and b.m.d. certificates aren't enough to flesh out these long gone people. That can only come via someone who knew them, who can tell you about their personalities, what they enjoyed or hated, the day to day intimate details that you have to be there to know about, even their colouring, which we can only guess at now from the black and white or sepia photographs of the time.

My grandmother could have told me whether she knew about her grandfather's second secret family (between the legitimate and the secret families, JBG fathered enough children for a couple of football teams - plus referees! A rogue and a villain, but successful with it!)

I could go on about the genes that give us clues as they pass down through the generations to the present time. Facial and other physical features, talents - I have identical eyes to two uncles, a great uncle and my great grandfather. I'm an artist and writer, my two daughters are musicians. But it would be wonderful to know more.

I'm currently working on a large (30" x 30") painting of my great aunt Bessie Bird with her father Sydney Bird and one of his partners, whose name I don't know). I'm using two photographs, Bessie from around 1900, and Sydney from an old daguerrotype which must have been taken sometime in the 1860s. They could never have performed together like this, but I'm employing a bit of artist's licence - and also showing them in full colour. Of course I can only guess at the colour of their costumes, or even Bessie's hair, and it's quite a spooky feeling as I try to bring them back to life in this way.

When I've finished, I plan to run another MEMOIRS WORKSHOP for writers and non-writers - a chance to record their own and their family's lives before it's too late. More news later.

YOU LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY!

I spent a lot of time online the other day searching for personal experiences of working on sheep or cattle stations in the Australian Outback. I wanted this info for my latest book - the one that started off with an elderly amputee, a younger amputee invalided home from Afghanistan, a dog, a disfunctional family in Liverpool and a writing class, all of which have been ditched except for number one and number four.

(See my post NOBODY SAID IT WAS EASY from 13 October)

Why did I want to know about Australian livestock stations? Don't ask, I may well change the story yet again by next week.

In any case, I couldn't find what I wanted, so I decided to download a novel that I hoped would give me what I need.

I now know all I didn't need to know about the mechanics of gay sex but all I've learned about the Outback is that there's a lot of red dust.

BOOKS FOR EARLY ONSET ALTZHEIMER'S PATIENTS AND THEIR CARERS

I see it's been proposed to make several books freely available to early onset Alzheimer's patients and their carers to enable them to cope with this tragic disease.

One of the books recommended is 'STILL ALICE', which has now been made into a film with Julianne Moore. 

I haven't seen the film but I did read the book, a beautiful and very moving novel by Lisa Genova, based on her own experience with patients.

However, I think it's the last book I personally would recommend, being deeply saddening and offering no hope as it carries the reader towards the inevitable ending.

A far better choice, I think, would be THE MEMORY BOOK by Rowan Coleman, with a similar main character, a teacher in her forties, also married and a mother.  

This equally beautiful novel is full of tips, practical and ingenious, on how to manage the downward spiral, yet at the same time it's full of humour, love and optimism.I recommend it to any readers who find themselves caught in this terrible situation. 

IN PRAISE OF PAINT.NET

I've been having a lot of fun over the past week or two redesigning some of my covers (I've always created my own - some using photographs, others using my own sketches or detail cropped from some of my own paintings). 

It's useful  being able to combine my two main interests, writing and painting, but you don't necessarily need artistic talent to produce a cover that hits the eye and tells part of the story.

And with Paint.net it's easy to experiment, as it uses a system of 'layers' - each section that you add (photograph, text, special effects, colour changes, etc) is on a separate layer - just remember to untick the layers you're not playing around with!

I taught myself the hard way, by trying and failing, but now that I know how to do it (Isn't it always the case?) I've come across a very good tutorial that you can download as a PDF and print out (37 pages). From Lancaster University it's called 'IMAGE MANIPULATION WITH PAINT.NET'.

The even better news is that Paint.net is FREE!