I spent yesterday afternoon at an event associated with the London Book Fair, which is in full swing from today through Tuesday at Olympia. The Daily Mail Book Club sponsors a set of 'masterclasses': a conference hall of would-be writers gathers to scoop up pearls of wisdom from those in the industry. (Oh joy! I no longer have to go to the one called How To Get Published!!) Yesterday afternoon, two of my favourite writers, Rose Tremain and Graham Swift, were there to talk about contemporary fiction, though in the event the questions were more about the process of writing a book, especially the inner processes and the emotions associated with them. About 300 of us lapped up every word as Rose Tremain described finishing 'Restoration' on a diet of toast, yogurt and sherry and recalled how the pencil-scrawled draft of her second novel met a leaking bottle of olive oil in a suitcase on her way home from holiday.
Asked about narrative structure, Graham Swift described his approach as musical. He feels his way through the structure according to emotions, he explained (this is a rough paraphrase, by the way), and suggested that the emotional charge associated with different parts of the book is something close to music because it is beyond the words themselves; it has to exist as a driving force before the words come into being.
This does ring some kind of deep bell at the back of my mind and somehow relates to my pre-caffeine musings about the relationship between music and writing the other day. Would a composer set out to write a piece of music without having a pretty good sense of the kind of structure he/she wants to create?
For my new book, I've mapped out a detailed skeleton of What Happens When to guide me through the maze. RT and GS yesterday both said that they don't do this, however. A novel is an adventure and must be approached with an adventurous spirit, suggested Swift. They both have a good idea of where their story is going, but are willing to be diverted to some extent as they make discoveries along the way. I was reassured to hear that Malcolm Bradbury used to go for the skeleton approach!
Meanwhile spring is beginning here in London. The daffodils are coming out and Solti the cat is going nuts (even though he's been 'done'). It's a time for hope and for clearing out the filing cabinets and for thinking ahead rather than back. Nice...
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Friday, March 11, 2005
Preoccupied with poetry
Just found an incredible poem by Margaret Atwood at a blog called Blindheit: clarity is overrated. Most of the blog is in Spanish, which isn't exactly my best language, but the poem is in English and it's out of this world. Thank you, Evelio, wherever you are - it made my day.
Speaking of poems, I saw a terrific poem on the underground the other week - on the Jubilee Line heading for Waterloo after a Wigmore Hall gig - and now I can't a) remember the name of the poet, b) remember the name of the poem, or exactly how it went, c) find it on the Poems on the Underground website, d) find it anywhere else either. It's a recent poem and in it the poet is trying to rent out his heart, as if in a newspaper property ad. Is this a consequence of getting older - that one's brain turns into a Swiss cheese? If I encounter it again, I shall copy it out.
More consequences of The Book Contract: I am now allowed to acknowledge openly that poetry, literature, indeed fine writing generally, means every bit as much to me as music. The two are, after all, closely related. I'm not going to start analysing how and why, or waxing lyrical about it either, certainly not before I've had my second cup of coffee. But I do wonder if it has something to do with precision of structure - the way content and form unite in a unique manner to make a statement that is both entirely personal and entirely universal.
Speaking of poems, I saw a terrific poem on the underground the other week - on the Jubilee Line heading for Waterloo after a Wigmore Hall gig - and now I can't a) remember the name of the poet, b) remember the name of the poem, or exactly how it went, c) find it on the Poems on the Underground website, d) find it anywhere else either. It's a recent poem and in it the poet is trying to rent out his heart, as if in a newspaper property ad. Is this a consequence of getting older - that one's brain turns into a Swiss cheese? If I encounter it again, I shall copy it out.
More consequences of The Book Contract: I am now allowed to acknowledge openly that poetry, literature, indeed fine writing generally, means every bit as much to me as music. The two are, after all, closely related. I'm not going to start analysing how and why, or waxing lyrical about it either, certainly not before I've had my second cup of coffee. But I do wonder if it has something to do with precision of structure - the way content and form unite in a unique manner to make a statement that is both entirely personal and entirely universal.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Midweek
Huge, huge thanks to everyone who wrote in with advice about the laptop computer. My first choice is indeed 12" Mac Powerbook. I spent a happy afternoon the other day tapping away on keyboards in Tottenham Court Road and it was by far the best in terms of keyboard comfort, carry-around weight and ease of use. BUT...the other day I went back to try to buy one for real and found that there was not a 12" Powerbook in stock anywhere in central London! I'm obviously not the only person who wants one...Since then I've reassessed the situation and worked out that as I'm not likely to be going away for any length of time until September (ouch!), there's really no urgency about it after all. Hmmm...
I should really have been in the Royal Festival Hall listening to Mahler 6 right now, but the Tomcat has injured his back pulling the bag out of the kitchen bin (I kid you not) and has had to take some time off work. Bad backs are a nightmare, as I know only too well from my experience last May, and there's no way on earth I'm going to let him sit in one spot with fiddle at the ready for 6 hours' rehearsal a day in his current state.
More alarming is that I'm not so sorry not to be at this concert. Mahler 6 is Tom's favourite of Big Gustav's output, but it's one of those symphonies that leaves me thinking, 'Come on, Gus, go see Freud and stop inflicting all this angst on your poor old listeners...' And friends in the band tell us that the Maestro (or is it Madame Piano Soloist?) insists they play the Mozart piano concerto with no vibrato. Not even on the long notes, as is recommended by Leopold, if someone had but bothered looking.
How come Leopold provides exercises for practising what we today call vibrato, several years before Wolfgang was born, and gives ample indication that the fiddlers around him were using FAR TOO MUCH WOBBLE HABITUALLY, and conductors still come along bright eyed and bushy tailed telling orchestras to use NONE? Nine times out of ten, it sounds frightful. What I want to know is, how many of them have so much as glanced at this text, let alone dared to form their own interpretations of it based on facts rather than hearsay?!?!? To judge from the squeaks and moans being emitted by some of today's highest profile musicians, not a great many.
I should really have been in the Royal Festival Hall listening to Mahler 6 right now, but the Tomcat has injured his back pulling the bag out of the kitchen bin (I kid you not) and has had to take some time off work. Bad backs are a nightmare, as I know only too well from my experience last May, and there's no way on earth I'm going to let him sit in one spot with fiddle at the ready for 6 hours' rehearsal a day in his current state.
More alarming is that I'm not so sorry not to be at this concert. Mahler 6 is Tom's favourite of Big Gustav's output, but it's one of those symphonies that leaves me thinking, 'Come on, Gus, go see Freud and stop inflicting all this angst on your poor old listeners...' And friends in the band tell us that the Maestro (or is it Madame Piano Soloist?) insists they play the Mozart piano concerto with no vibrato. Not even on the long notes, as is recommended by Leopold, if someone had but bothered looking.
How come Leopold provides exercises for practising what we today call vibrato, several years before Wolfgang was born, and gives ample indication that the fiddlers around him were using FAR TOO MUCH WOBBLE HABITUALLY, and conductors still come along bright eyed and bushy tailed telling orchestras to use NONE? Nine times out of ten, it sounds frightful. What I want to know is, how many of them have so much as glanced at this text, let alone dared to form their own interpretations of it based on facts rather than hearsay?!?!? To judge from the squeaks and moans being emitted by some of today's highest profile musicians, not a great many.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
On the town, on the news?!
Reeling slightly after seeing an item on the 10pm BBC news about ENO's new production of 'On The Town'. Apparently it is newsworthy that a national opera company is putting on a marvellous piece of music theatre by a 20th-century genius who happened to use clever lyrics, jazzy rhythms and lots of dancing. The thing is, 'On the Town', shock horror, is officially classified as A MUSICAL! And an OPERA company is doing it! And, horror of ultimate horrors, the tickets are selling well! Oh my Gaaaaahd, we're all going to die......not.
I mean, really. This is great stuff. Why on earth shouldn't an opera company do it? That way we can hear the music played as well as it ought to be, singing that is above the average school production (which was the miserable level of what I heard when I went to see 'West Side Story' in a major London venue a few years ago) and enjoy a wonderfully refurbished opera house without having to nod off while someone tootles through some bel canto twiddling, and without wanting to commit rapid hari kiri after subjecting oneself to Berg. I know what I'd rather see. And hey, I'm supposed to be educated and well-informed about opera. Some famous composer (whose name I can't remember at this time of evening) once said that there are only two kinds of music, good and bad. Implication, ditch the stupid classifications that cater only for the ubersnobs. I say, bring on the Bernstein!
I mean, really. This is great stuff. Why on earth shouldn't an opera company do it? That way we can hear the music played as well as it ought to be, singing that is above the average school production (which was the miserable level of what I heard when I went to see 'West Side Story' in a major London venue a few years ago) and enjoy a wonderfully refurbished opera house without having to nod off while someone tootles through some bel canto twiddling, and without wanting to commit rapid hari kiri after subjecting oneself to Berg. I know what I'd rather see. And hey, I'm supposed to be educated and well-informed about opera. Some famous composer (whose name I can't remember at this time of evening) once said that there are only two kinds of music, good and bad. Implication, ditch the stupid classifications that cater only for the ubersnobs. I say, bring on the Bernstein!
Monday, February 28, 2005
One year on...
Tomorrow will mark the first anniversary of my blog! I still can't get over the fact that I can type this in the comfort of my south-west London study at 8.38am and by 8.48 am some total stranger may be reading it on the other side of the world.
I don't know exactly how many visitors I've had during this time because I've had some ructions with webcounters along the way (there's now an invisible one!), but currently I'm averaging about 100 visitors per day. There's usually a dip at weekends, which suggests most of you log on at work! :-). I had my highest number of hits when I posted a picture of my cat, Solti!
There have been hits from 59 different countries from Los Angeles to Taipei to Chile to Kyrgystan.
I've discovered that bloggers are marvellous, strong-minded, helpful and idealistic people! You're marvellous, the lot of you! Some will go to extraordinary lengths to help out other people whom they've never met and wouldn't recognise if they bumped into them. Everyone experiences - I think - a sense almost of relief that blogs exist. This is a medium in which you really can speak your mind and nobody can tell you what your opinions ought to be.
Having so said, I'm still astonished at the way anonymous viewers hiding behind self-appointed watchdog-type nicknames are simply waiting to leap out of the woodwork to tear you to shreds the second you dare to admit that you don't like Christmas...
My most unlikely referrer was probably: http://ecksteingirlsbasketball.blogspot.com/. And some of the strangest Google queries that have led people to the site have been, in no particular order: 'Where can I find magic mushrooms in Scunthorpe'; 'latkes en francais' (please note, they taste the same in both languages!); 'Serkin rowing' (did he?); 'Ukranian poppyseed cake'; 'Real tomcat meow recordings sound effect download' (is that what my husband is doing in his spare time?!?); and last but by no means least, 'violin fetish' (erm, not unreasonable, this...)
Of course, the danger is that one uses a blog as a way of keeping friends and family scattered all over the place up to date with one's news - so apologies to anyone who's found they get fewer e-mails from me these days - don't worry, I still love you all!
Finally, I wish I could say that my book deal is the result of blogging, but it isn't. I started that book over a year before starting the blog and the fact that it's going to be published is the result of little more than a fantastic agent and some extremely good luck!
I don't know exactly how many visitors I've had during this time because I've had some ructions with webcounters along the way (there's now an invisible one!), but currently I'm averaging about 100 visitors per day. There's usually a dip at weekends, which suggests most of you log on at work! :-). I had my highest number of hits when I posted a picture of my cat, Solti!
There have been hits from 59 different countries from Los Angeles to Taipei to Chile to Kyrgystan.
I've discovered that bloggers are marvellous, strong-minded, helpful and idealistic people! You're marvellous, the lot of you! Some will go to extraordinary lengths to help out other people whom they've never met and wouldn't recognise if they bumped into them. Everyone experiences - I think - a sense almost of relief that blogs exist. This is a medium in which you really can speak your mind and nobody can tell you what your opinions ought to be.
Having so said, I'm still astonished at the way anonymous viewers hiding behind self-appointed watchdog-type nicknames are simply waiting to leap out of the woodwork to tear you to shreds the second you dare to admit that you don't like Christmas...
My most unlikely referrer was probably: http://ecksteingirlsbasketball.blogspot.com/. And some of the strangest Google queries that have led people to the site have been, in no particular order: 'Where can I find magic mushrooms in Scunthorpe'; 'latkes en francais' (please note, they taste the same in both languages!); 'Serkin rowing' (did he?); 'Ukranian poppyseed cake'; 'Real tomcat meow recordings sound effect download' (is that what my husband is doing in his spare time?!?); and last but by no means least, 'violin fetish' (erm, not unreasonable, this...)
Of course, the danger is that one uses a blog as a way of keeping friends and family scattered all over the place up to date with one's news - so apologies to anyone who's found they get fewer e-mails from me these days - don't worry, I still love you all!
Finally, I wish I could say that my book deal is the result of blogging, but it isn't. I started that book over a year before starting the blog and the fact that it's going to be published is the result of little more than a fantastic agent and some extremely good luck!
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