Dream Angus 2

And Angus took the photograph on my new header

Dream Angus

In June of 2011, having driven from the east coast of the Highlands through Strath Oykel and around to Ullapool I attempted to photograph the scenery then gave up.

I decided that landscape so grand, so majestic it makes your heart pound at the glory of it all, is impossible to convey in mere photographs. Let it be a dreamscape, a dwamscape, dwams being daydreams in the Scots language.
Then I saw the work of Angus Bruce.

In a cafe in Ullapool, where the tea and the home baking are excellent, the walls were lined with photographs big and small of the landscape and seascapes I had just driven through, had stopped to breath in, had reconnected with - the landscapes of my childhood.

Summers holidays, up through one strath or another, across to Ullapool, to Lochinver, onwards to Kylesku and the ferry, stopping at Cape Wrath on family camping trips.
School climbing trips, scrambling up the scree slopes of Stac Pollaidh, marching through peat bogs and high heather so tough, so gnarled it was hard going even when a fit young teenager, (not that we had teenagers in those days) And the fires the sandy shores of a lochan, brewing billy tea, eating egg  sandwiches and sticky buttered gingerbread, I could taste the taste looking at Angus's photographs
He captures it all, the land of my dreams.

Angus can be found at: www.highlandpix.co.uk

And this is for you Angus:  Annie Lennox - Dream Angus.


And here is the poem

Dream Angus

Chorus
Dreams to sell, fine dreams to sell,
Angus is here with dreams to sell.
Hush now wee bairnie and sleep without fear,
For Angus will bring you a dream, my dear.

Can you no hush your weepin'?
All the wee lambs are sleepin'.
Birdies are nestlin', nestlin' taegether,
Dream Angus is hurtlin' through the heather.

Chorus

Sweet the lavrock sings at morn,
Heraldin' in a bright new dawn.
Wee lambs, they coorie doon taegether
Alang with their ewies in the heather.

Chorus

Meaning of unusual words:
bairnie=child
lavrock=skylark
coorie=huddle

Aa the best

Annie Lennox - Dream Angus

Deadly deadlines

Hmmm, having the deadline brought forward by two months --does it concentrate the mind or create real snivelling, wake up at three twenty AM panic? Both.
Does it stop you having a life, put friends on the 'must remember to call, email, text list'? Yes indeedy.
Does it make one reach into the deep and dangerous and shock-and-hurt-yourself-pain-place, to find the heart of the matter, to write, write, and write? That too.

And today it's raining -- that helps.

But the most help, is outside help, from a trusted teacher. In Viet Nam, teachers are revered. Teachers Day is a huge event, especially for flower sellers. My office was once so packed with flowers I could barely breath as the pollen sent me sneezing, eyes streaming, but smiling in gratitude to all the students and staff.
In this culture it does not have to be a  teacher as in school teacher,  but a person who has given wisdom or advise, helping you in a way you remember and value. You in turn remember that person, honour them on teacher's day. My list of wise teachers is long, very long.

Vis a vis deadlines however, Jan Cornall, The Writers Journey is the woman. On my fourth book? Three published and modestly successful? Yep and yep. So why do I need a writing coach? I don't. I need a mistress of pain (50 shades reversed? Now there's thought)

Enter Jan Cornall. Her Avoidance Busters Manual was first stop. Read it, makes lots of sense. Tried it. Still procrastinating. Need sterner stuff. Checked out the website again. Damn. No time for the wonderful journeys that worked so well before (Mekong writers, Luang Prabang last December) Time only for the BIG STICK

So now, after a consultation with Mistress Jan, I have a daily word count. Plus a weekly SKYPE call. All I have to do is 1500 words per day minimum, "easy' says Jan, plus revision, plus blog ---nah, forget the blog, and I need to shop eat swim read sleep --nah, can cut some of that out too --sleep probably. And shopping, and --never reading. Eating? swimming? living? breathing?

OOOPs, this doesn't count towards the count --procrastination creeping in again.

Aa' the best,


Làinte mhor a h-uile là a chi 's nach fhaic
(Good health to you every day I see you and every day I don't)


www.writersjourney.com.au/

Book reviews

Socking it to the Puppets of Reviewerland is the title of The Age article.
And I thought I knew most things shonky in this world but horrified- and saddened is the only comment I'll make.

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/socking-it-to-the-puppets-of-reviewerland-20120905-25dsq.html

It seems that not only do you post rave reviews about your own work on Amazon and other outlets, not only do rubbish your rivals i.e. fellow authors, you can also go on to buy great reviews at $90 a pop.

I know how hard it is to compete with established authors, and as a new author to build up your readership but this...no. Never. Otherwise how can you derive any satisfaction in the sales you make? 

On that subject, here below is a genuine review of my new book from the notoriously choosy Publishers Weekly. I take great satisfaction in knowing that a) I didn't write it, b) I didn't pay for it, and c) the positive review is most gratifying given how hard I struggled with this book, all the time trying to improve my work, to make it better than the one before.

Aa' the best.

Beneath the Abbey Wall
A.D. Scott. Atria, $15 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-4516-6577-2

In Scott’s appealing third novel set in the 1950s Scottish Highlands (after 2011’s A Double Death on the Black Isle), the arrest of Donal McLeod, the Highland Gazette’s deputy editor, for fatally stabbing the newspaper’s business manager, Mrs. Smart, throws the newsroom into chaos. None of the staff can believe Donal is capable of cold-blooded murder, least of all editor McAllister and reporter Joanne Ross, who set out to find the real killer. The police, on the other hand, think Donal had ample motive as a major beneficiary of Mrs. Smart’s will. Scott vividly evokes Scotland of the period, where tweed skirts are de rigueur for women, and separation from a spouse is almost unheard of. The well-drawn characters, who come from a range of backgrounds, give a broad view of the social milieu—especially Glaswegian McAllister, a relative newcomer to the Highlands. Agent: Peter McGuigan, Foundry Literary + Media. (Nov.)

Reviewed on: 08/31/2012

Permalink: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4516-6577-2 (978-1-4516-6577-2)

13/ 13th/ Thirteenth

The latest book in the Highland Gazette series comes out on 13th November 2012

13 / 13th / thirteenth

Superstitious? Me? Never. Well, almost never. But I know someone - a close family member, born on the thirteenth who changed his birthdate. How, I don't know, but he never admits to being born on the thirteenth.

I decided a long time ago  not to be superstitious. As I have moved countries, and continents, and read and heard of other cultures' superstitions, and heard so many weird and conflicting superstitions, I've decided to give them up.
BUT
I don't walk under ladders because that seems plain sensible.
I don't count chickens etc, because that seems sensible also.
But I still throw salt over my left shoulder should I spill some.

But the thirteenth? Friday the thirteenth even? I find it a good day to get things done as many people avoid trains and boats and planes.

So, Tuesday the 13th of November it is ---and I will be in New York. Hmmm, what did I say about not counting chickens? But I've booked a flight, and a hotel, for Tuesday the 13th in New York. So, we shall see.

PS ...and I took the picture of the actual place where the actual (fictitious) deed was done.

Aa' the best.

Just do it

First time I heard that phrase was from Frank Zappa of The Mothers of Invention, addressing students at the LSE at the time of the London student riots (1968). He was talking about getting an education and infiltrating the system from within.
He could have been talking about writing.

Google "Writing" or "Habits of Writers" and nearly every writer mentions the habit of writing, daily, (a bit like exercise or sports training). Published writers write about the necessity of turning out words no matter their merit, and the days when you hate writing and it is all dross, to the days when the muse visits you and it all works as it by magic. But, BUT... there ain't no magic, same as there ain't no "sanity clause" -- thank you Groucho for shattering my illusions.

Dennis Lehane, Stephen King, Margaret Atwood, Maeve Binchy and all spectrums in between say, write write write. Make your daily words as necessary as brushing your teeth.

Well, I'm trying. I'm at 1500 words a day - aiming for 2,000 and it is not because I have a contract for this book but because, when you are writing, no matter how crap you think it is ...you feel marvellous.

There. I've said it. I've revealed why writers write. Because it feels marvellous.

And if you need a far better explanation than the above, Google, Colin Nissan - THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO WRITING BETTER THAN YOU NORMALLY DO.

Tell it like it is Colin.

Aa' the best.