I take in a gulp of crisp cold air, filling my lungs with it. My palms stick and my heart drums heavily in my chest. The rocks beneath my bare feet have soaked in the heat of the sun that the wind steals out of the air. The landscape rolls out in front of me. Between here and there is a sea of dimpled rock. Huge ravines and gaps span outwards. I stand at the edge of one now. One. Two. Three. Jump into the void. My muscles scream as I push upwards. The cold blue air rushes against my skin. I have become a bird. Free and light. When I land it is with a heaviness. The rock is hard and unyielding. My skin soft and exposed. I take a shaky breath and look back. The ravine looks darker now. Deeper. What if I had fallen? Shakily I press onwards. Put one foot forward. Now the path is clearer and the next gap a comfortable distance, I can truly soak it up. This place is so big. So empty. The sky is a blanket above. The rocks like some other world. Smooth faces with rounded bumps. Gritty under my feet but clean and gentle to my eyes. I walk slowly, extending the time between now and the next gap, the next jump into the void.
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This was the second freewritten piece I wrote for the writing workshop I attended recently. We were asked to chose a picture from a small selection and to set the scene of the picture. I couldn't believe it when I saw this one in the pile. I grabbed it and started writing straight away.
I went to a writer’s workshop on Friday. The workshop was focused on writing for young adults and teens, though most participants seemed to have more interest in writing for younger children. We had some very interesting debates about young adult fiction, some of which I would like to briefly share here. If you are indifferent to the ins and outs of YA publishing then feel free to skip ahead to the story I wrote whilst at the workshop, which is below the image. The image was given to us as a reference for a 10 minute freewriting exercise. We were told to write the back-story of one of the characters in the picture. I wonder if you can guess which character I chose.
As for the YA publishing debate we had: the writer who lead the workshop has written a YA/ teen novel that was rejected by publishers because it contained sex scenes. There is a lot of heat in the literary world about how many young readers stop recreational reading during their mid teen years. This comes as no surprise to me if publishers are refusing to publish stories for them that they actually want to read. Teenagers want to read about sex, violence, drugs. They want the characters to use the same language as them. The sort of teenagers who don’t get along with literature do not want to read about little angels who never say a single little shit or fuck. They want characters who they can relate to doing stuff that they can relate to. When you climb up the age ladder and reach the 16,17,18,19 group you will find that these kids are into Skins, the Inbetweeners, they watch films full of fucks, shits, blood and gore. Yet when it comes to books they have a choice: twee or adult. Adult books can often leave the weaker teenage reader feeling lost, often unable to relate to it at all. No wonder they chose not to read. They have little to read about.
Anyway, here the freewritten story I wrote at the workshop. I wrote another which I might post up shortly. Keep your specs on.
The Watcher
I come here to watch them sometimes. I never go further than this. The man who lives there has a gun that he uses to shoot deer. It wouldn’t be so different for him to train his sights on me instead of antlers. I am just as wild. Fair game. I own nothing. No fancy house. I don’t go to church and I hunt my food rather than grow it.
There is a girl who is paid to feed the chickens. She was one of ours once, but her mother decided to get out. Her mother wanted her to know a proper life; one with a house and money and hierarchy.
I head away, back towards the woods. My back turns cold to the house and I make tracks in the opposite direction, trying to push it all away. Keep my mind on the job. There are rabbits to hunt and berries to gather.
My long legs make big strides. Before not too long I hear rustling in the undergrowth. My muscles harden and my breath turns soft and still. But my mind is heavy with images of that house and the girl who keeps the chickens. Her name is Sylvie. I taught her to draw a bow. I taught her how to skin a rabbit, how to cook it and eat it. She knows how to really get along in this world. No need for a house or a church or pots of gold. Despite this she stays down in that valley in the shadow of that house and she scatters feed for someone else’s chickens, picks apples from someone else’s trees, tends their swine and seed. All for cash to take home to her mother. My breath comes too harsh. The rabbit hears and bolts. No dinner for me tonight.
I sit in a sulk and pick at the grass. Why does she never look up when I go to watch the house? Has she seen me? I’ve watched from up there too many times for her not to have seen. I guess that means that she doesn’t want to know. That all I taught her meant nothing. That I mean nothing. I stay sitting here until the sun sits low on the hill. She will be putting those chickens to bed right now. I should put myself to bed. I don’t think I’ll go back to that hill again. It puts my head out of line.
Here are some recent photographs taken on walks near my house:
The Wood Fair was good. I spoke to the editor of Living Woods magazine and he suggested I come up with some article ideas. Perhaps I will report on the basket making course I am attending on Saturday. It is not going to take place in the woods, however, instead in the middle of Gillingham. Gillingham is a small country town that causes embarrassment in its residents. All the other towns scattered about this beautiful region have quaint streets and pretty houses. Gillingham has a massive industrial estate, a large collection of estate agents and is surrounded by a ring of newly built housing estates. But there is a little thatched cottage hidden in the middle. Surrounded by trees, this place is a lost secret. A little ancient smallholding with chickens and a cottage garden with pretty vegetable patches and winding small paths. The basket-making course will take place there.
No gymnastics this week. Mr Kite is ill, and so is everybody else who could happily give me a lift there. This coming Sunday I shall be attending the Cranborne Wood Fair up at the Larmer Tree Gardens, not that far from where I live. Should be good! This is probably the last wood fair of the year so I’d better make the most of it. Mr Kite hopes to buy a side axe and a froe and I’d like to buy some basket making tools. There’s a guy who sells lovely second hand tools who will be there, I hope he doesn’t sell all the good ones on Saturday. I have not been writing at all recently. There is too much kitchen-work to be done. Today I made a whole lot of green tomato chutney. Tomorrow I need to make more beetroot chutney, and if there is time; some rosehip syrup.
This is a photo of the outdoor kitchen that I sometimes cook in up in the woods. And also Mary.
I have had a couple of reviews published on ezines recently. The first of which is a review of Lateralus by Tool for a Classic Albums section of the e-journal. You can read it here.
The second is a review of a wonderful book called a Handmade Life, please go here to read my review.
I’ve been having so much fun recently, away from my computer and involved instead in much more down-to-earth activities. Mary and I have been cooking in the woods a lot, but now she has gone off to live with Dick Strawbridge and co down in Cornwall for a while.
I’ve been making many jams and jellies, the most delicious of which being the Elderberry and Blackberry jam. Crab apple jelly was so, so yummy but Mr Kite and I went too far beyond the setting point and it has the consistency of Turkish Delight rather than jelly. Works beautifully well in jam tarts though.
The beetroot chutney I made is really good. I wish I had made more. Next plan is for some tomato chutney.
I have also started up gymnastics after a ten year hiatus. It’s incredible how my muscles remember what to do. I just run up to the springboard and then I do a handspring vault just as cleanly as I did when I was 14. When I was last a gymnast I suffered a lot from lack of confidence, and I never liked to do backwards things. I assumed I wasn’t built for gymnastics. Now I’m older and slightly more confident I know I can do these things if I put in the training. I learnt to do a backflick yesterday, which is something I was always much too afraid to try in my however many years of childhood gymnastics. I’ve managed to do front somersaults, handsprings and a dodgy backflick after just two sessions.
I’ve been away from the internet for a short time, and might not be back for a few days or weeks. As I said in my last post; I finished writing the first draft of a novel and figured it would be nice to spend some time doing practical things. I feel like jotting down some interesting things I have seen and done recently.
I saw an Osprey down at a lake a little way from my house, in fact there is a picture of the lake on an earlier post and a mention of spotting a strange large bird that I thought was black, or at least dark. It transpires that the bird was probably an Osprey; and even if it wasn’t, I later saw one for sure. I had the great fortune to go by the lake when some twitters were set up there with their long lenses. I asked them what the bird I might have seen earlier in the month might have been and they directed me to look in the lenses. There it was sitting in a tree, all proud and beautiful. An Osprey. I couldn’t believe it.
Myself and my boyfriend (Mr Kite) made some jam (a batch of strawberry and a batch of raspberry, picked at Ansty PYO). It’s so delicious. We’re going to make some hedgerow jams and jellies tomorrow with the help of our newest fabulous friend, Mary. I love meeting new friends, especially ones who are on my same wavelength. Today we went to the woods near Bath, and Mary and I were working in the outdoor kitchen together, baking a cake in the cob oven and making delicious food for the workers to wolf down. We both would like very much to be homemakers in self-sufficient heaven. Maybe someday we will. Maybe I will post some photos of this sometime.
Cheese fair in Stir on Saturday and then back to the woods for more outdoor cookery on Sunday. Fun times!
My all round favourite is probably Ash, for the sheer versatility of it. Ash is a wonderful wood to whittle things from, it’s strong and fairly flexible. The only wood to burn well mature or green is Ash, and it’s a very handsome tree.
My favourite individual tree is the Wyndham Oak in Silton, near where I live. This tree is so old that Sir Hugh Wyndham, who died in 1684, sat under this tree. It’s massive and gnarly and beautiful.
Aesthetically I think white poplar is very stunning. It shimmers and dances in the wind. A whole row of them look so out of this world, like you’ve fallen through a wardrobe and come out the other side.
And you?
I made two batches of shortbread today with the help of my little sister. One made with caster sugar and the other with Dorset honey. This is the consensus: refined sugar is no good for anything. Honey is good for bees and good for me and it tastes damned good in shortbread.
I finished the first draft of the novel I am writing for the same sister who helped me bake shortbread. I feel sad to know that I will no longer be journeying with these few characters I have shaped and learned to respect along the way. At least now I can finally get on with things. Learn to make a basket, whittle a spoon, bake some bread. I’ve been too long sucked into this world of my creation. Time now to immerse myself into a world that created itself.
