In Flanders Fields, by John McRae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

The dog needs a walk come hell or high water and today is both. I am tired at the end of week one of NaNo but happy to be ahead of the count. I use the walk to wake up, and a brisk pace in a howling gale wake the brain. 
My characters walk with me and tell me their story. 

I notice the surroundings and the weather, and describe it in my head. Sometimes I record snippets on my phone. 

'Poppy chased a squirrel across a bed of wet leaves and in the joy of the chase, forgot that it was raining. We made wet prints in the leaves as we sought the shelter of the trees. The sky and sea merged in the distance into a grey smudge and the sun barely rose, subdued and baffled behind it,' 

Team Peacock has gone into action this month, taking over my job as caterer in chief so that I can concentrate on writing. I was not allowed to do the shopping at the weekend, so I sat in Morrison's cafe with a cup of tea. I committed the cardinal sin of forgetting my notebook - I wasn't expecting to need it - and so I used the time to scribble on a napkin. This became the beginning of Chapter Three, which I started with a clear intention and then something else happened and the character (Jack) handed me a new thread to weave into the story. 

I am surprised that so far I am (almost) on plot but this is the nursery slopes. The setting up of characters before it all begins to unravel. That's usually when I do as well.

Today I am thinking about the  impact of story telling
Take these examples:

You read an article in the newspaper about a road accident
or
A friend witnesses a road accident and tells you about it
or
You witness the road accident
or
You are involved in the road accident......

Early hours. I tiptoe onto a blank page and hesitantly tap out CHAPTER ONE. I feel woefully unprepared like I need another week to hone the plot but I have a story and some characters so I will run with them. At least I will when I am warmed up a bit. By page six I am dancing and at 3,180 words urge myself on to the end of the chapter.

Tomorrow a whole new blank page awaits and I will approach cautiously until I feel the rhythm which may let me dance with words again.

Conti-Writer's Group
A blank page... an open stage, full of possibilities....
Whatever you love to write - fiction, short stories, poetry, 
life stories, diaries, anecdotes...  join us for an informal 
creative writer's group in Dovercourt.
Thursday 23rd October and monthly
Hotel Continental Dovercourt
More information here

If like me you are happier starting a new project than finishing one, you will have a few Works In Progress (WIP's).

At the current count, I have a new historical novel brewing, with a title, a story, themes of love, loss and art, set during the Spanish Civil War with characters shouting at me when I take the dog for a walk, or just before I go to sleep. I need to pin down the plot so that I can start writing it for NaNoWriMo in November. Then there is the lighter contemporary short romcom set in Andalucia with a title, story, characters and plot ready to go....  A Young Adult historical which is also bugging me and tugging at my unconscious; if it shouts much louder I will have a story, and a few more characters with a plot gradually emerging....

The back catalogue, which most of us have collected, comes under the heading of 'Unfinished Business' and needs to be resolved. Four Romantic Novels which will be cannibalised for spares if I don't get them into publication before then. But they need attention; there is a reason they are not published; usually, story related and all are in a queue for the story doctor to diagnose some remedies which will make them more compelling to read.

So the question is this:

Do I work on the new, exciting historical novel, which needs a lot more research? The romcom which I will enjoy and requires less research? Or change tack altogether and go for my first YA historical which will also need research? And when oh when do I get round to healing and making the back catalogue of four novels ready for publication?

Tell me about your WIP's and back catalogue and how you plan to tackle it. 

A group of close friends. My family. A fabulous venue. Food and drink and a pile of books. All the ingredients for a great Sunday lunchtime. Thanks to everyone who came to support me. The 'Name a Character' Raffle was won by SAM RITCHIE, who will appear as a character in my next book. I will begin to write The Ties That Bind in NaNoWriMo this year.I had the opportunity to talk  about the background to The Art Forger's Daughter. This is a summary of what I said, some of what I intended to say and forgot (speaking without reference to notes is a hazardous approach) and some of what I would have said had I thought of it at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Author's Notes: The Art Forger's Daughter

Art Forgery in World War Two
The starting point for this book was the remarkable true story of Artist Hans Van Meegeren who was arrested after WW11 in Amsterdam for Collaboration. He was charged with selling the nation’s art treasures to the Nazis when a small Vermeer painting was found in Herman Goerring’s collection of looted art and was traced back to Van Meegeren. Collaboration was a hanging offence, so in his defense, Van Meegeren claimed that he had painted the picture. He was not immediately believed – nobody could paint like Vermeer - and the painting had provenance and authentication.  He said that he could prove it by painting another and so he set about literally painting for his life. He proved his case and was sentenced to one year imprisonment for forgery, a light sentence which reflected public opinion; he had become a national hero for fooling the Nazi’s. Sadly he died in prison before his sentence was completed.

This story has been told in many books and even a film, so I was not intending to recreate it – but I wondered about the other ways in which Art can play a part in all areas of our life and even be used to save lives. Picasso’s now infamous painting ‘Guernica’ for example raised awareness and support across a  largely non interventionist Europe of the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War.

THEMES
This book is a love story, dealing with the reckless passion of first love, and a deeper, more lasting maternal / paternal love which echoes down the centuries. It tells the story of the unintended consequences of actions, memory truth and lies. How the past ripples through the generations to impact on the lives of those who come after.

The effects of trauma 
It is well documented that trauma casts a long shadows after any war. What I am interested in is the trauma suffered by the women and children of war and the impact that trauma has on those who come after. There is much documentation about the Hunger Winter and the physical effects of starvation, which also rippled down the years causing both physical and emotional ill health throughout the lives of those who endured it.

Mental Health
The 1950’s was another planet and looking back even over such a short time, we can see the social changes in attitude and life styles, but none so much as in the treatment of Mental Health patients. Thanks to my brother, John Belli for his support in researching this aspect of the book and answering my unusual questions.

Art Forgery:
Learning how to forge pictures in the 1940’s and 50’s hasn’t made me rich! Detection techniques have improved dramatically and these forgeries of old masters would be harder to make today. Modern masters became easier to forge but fakes and forgeries are still prolific and continue to keep the law busy

PLACES
Some of the places in the book are real, some are fictional and for the purposes of this book, I have taken a few liberties.

Severalls Mental Hospital in Colchester is a real place and was closed in 1997. Opened in 1913 and did indeed have extremely long, previously unglazed corridors. It’s gardens were documented as being amongst the best in the area.

The suburb of Shrub End in Colchester was built in the post war era, in common with many towns and cities around the UK.

The old Dutch quarter of Colchester still exists and is now much sought after. The Little House on Stockwell Street is fictional but is typical of houses in that area at the time. Stockwell Street doesn’t exist: East and West Stockell do, as does ‘Stockwell’.

The George Hotel has stood on the same spot for 500 years and I thought it an appropriate venue for Dr. Felix to stay.

Wrabness  just along the tracks on the branch line between Manningtree and Harwich:  I have taken a few liberties to suit the story but mostly thought it would be a great setting for these two ‘babes on the wood...’

The Port of Harwich remained busy during the war and passenger ferries resumed in 1946. It was the port which received the Kinder Transport, the Jewish children evacuated from Nazi occupied Europe, who were housed temporarily in a caravan park in nearby Dovercourt, Essex, being transported on to London Liverpool Street where a statue commemorates their journey. At the time of writing, there are still people living in Colchester and the surrounding area who first came to Britain on the Kinder transport.

Amsterdam as a setting because it is more likely that Dr. Van Gelder would live and work there. Following conversations with Johanna Brown, who lived in Holland as a child during the Nazi occupation and now lives in Manningtree, I set a scene in the more remote tree nurseries of Boskoop.  

VOICES
1st person alternating Beatrix and T’Ash. 3rd person other characters; multiple viewpoints give more scope for story telling.  I love to hear a character's ‘real’ voice

CHARACTERS
All fictitious and like most of us a flawed bunch who are trying to survive and thrive; who share a common humanity and I have tried to give them all some redeeming features. Their task is to learn and grow through the challenges which have been chucked at them..... So in reality, based pretty much on all of us.... 

These are a few techniques which I developed at The Creative Casa. I use these every day in my writing practice and workshop teaching.  

Endnotes from: 'Tales from the Creative Casa' by Anita Belli

1. Morning pages is based on an exercise from Julia Cameron’s ‘The Artist’s Way’  (A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self). As soon as I get out of bed; after putting the dog out, feeding the cat and putting on  the coffee, I write. Whatever comes into my head gets put into words. You capture all the unconscious thoughts, ideas and dreams which you didn’t even know were there and which evaporate like mist as the morning dawns and life gets in the way. I fill a notebook every three or four weeks with this process and now I cannot start my day without it. I write on a computer the rest of the time but my Morning Pages are hand written. There is something magical about waking up and taking a pen and making marks on paper. It is primitive and spontaneous. I use this as a warm up to develop fluency between feeling, thought and words. It has become my scales and arpeggios, or ballet barre.

2. Develop a reflective practice: sieve the morning pages and the memory banks looking for connections, themes, links and ironies: all fertile ground to grow ideas. All sorts of things come up and writing them down gives tangible form, like water from mist, which can be bottled and stored, distilled and explored, to find an essence which you can process later and use in your fiction.

3. Get the Notebook Habit: Carry it around with you. Write everything down: snippets overheard can spark a short story. Observing people can spark an idea for a character. Write down how you feel. How the world is treating you. How you are treating the world. Your interaction with others. Even if it doesn’t spark an idea for a story setting or character, it will at least get it out of your system so that personal rants don’t make it into the pages of your fiction.

4. Warm up the body: greet the day with feathered wings not feet of clay: Get in touch with your body; shake it up and wake it up; alert the senses to the day; through gentle stretches, or a walk. Dogs are great companions and motivators; they get you out of the house in all weathers. Breathe. The ‘inspiration’ of breath is taken for granted. Connect with it consciously.

5. People matter. Refresh the pool of ideas and resources through interaction with interesting people thus creating flow and sustaining the process. Populating your creative life adds value to the seeds and ideas.

6 Play games; borrow a child if necessary. You can have fun and liberate the locked-in creative soul of the curious child who is willing to play and hasn’t yet learned the inhibitions and fears of the adult. Be playful and bring joy back into your life and work.

7. Location and environment are also important. Try a different place, a new space, a refreshing view. Recharge the spirit; do something different or go somewhere you haven’t been before. Vary the morning walk, or shop in a different town. Visit someone who lives in a very different environment to your – urban or countryside, village or metropolis; it is all grist to the mill.

8. Learn through doing; experience it. Doing is where the meaning is and if you find the meaning you learn more; another small step on the creative journey. It sounds obvious, but the more you write and reflect, the more you will learn about yourself and your writing.

9. Be present in your life: explore the boundaries of being present in your life; of turning up and experiencing it; and translating those experiences into creative thought and insights.

10. Use all of the senses as you write, paint, create, make, sing, play. Feel it. taste it; hear it; look again; see the layers. Experience it. Go on a treasure hunt to a market, or a village or an urban street or an empty beach and gather notes or images for each of the five senses. Review your notes and images and notice connections, links themes and ironies.

Creativity requires trust and imagination and placing yourself in the moment and exploring the whole world with the whole self. And having fun along the way and sharing it with like minded fellow travelers.

Contact me if you wish to continue the conversation or participate in workshops.

The Creative Casa is a farmhouse in Andalucia where, for a while, we ran workshops and explored how to find the creative spark in ourselves; to discover where it sits, nudging us all the time, wanting to be let out to add fulfilment to our lives.

This collection of short stories was edited at The Creative Casa and the stories have been selected from a large number written over a period of years. The themes I have chosen here are universal themes of love and loss, secrets and lies; the unintended consequences of past actions on the present; and young women at that threshold in their lives where they discover that they are carrying new life. 

They are sometimes humorous with a light heart, real life with a little magic, and occasionally, real life which doesn’t end so well. I also like to write short stories where the possibilities begin as the story ends.

Some have previously been published in magazines whilst others are openings and jumping off points for longer works of fiction. They vary in length, motivation and inspiration.

In the end, all fiction draws from the well of creativity which needs to be nurtured. It springs from our experiences, observations, snippets overheard, and a life lived.....and we can all draw from that spring if we are nudged towards it.

Coming soon on Amazon and Kindle

It has been an amazing journey. Ups and downs frustrations and disappointments, a moment of relief and then... it is there, online and you just can't believe that you have finally done it. The last few miles have been the most productive. I have been supported by a great team; Charlie Peacock who has designed the cover and Charlotte Peacock who is dealing with the launch event and the social media and marketing stuff. Also the Beta readers who gave me valuable feedback and support. I could not have got to this stage without them....

When we stop running and the dust settles, I will set up some workshops on how to self publish. It has been such a steep learning curve that I want to share - I will post here in early September. Meanwhile if you have any questions or queries I will be happy to answer them if I can. Also happy to support Reader's Groups.

Charlie has made a short video of his design process and the many variations before we arrived at the final cover, just for fun and so that he will never forget! The next one will be easier. 

Last week, I was in Clacton with
The Grand Theatre of Lemmings.
The theme of the street theatre event was Then And Now. It was a commemoration of WW1, with Mandy Rose and Helen Abbey singing Old Time Music Hall, the young Lemmings running circus skills for children and a poppy making workshop. There were letters from the trenches read by Charlie Peacock and my workshop was to collect words, thoughts, ideas, and memories from people passing by and to write them on postcards to be added to a time capsule. I wrote the poem below from those words and memories and it was read back to the people of Clacton at the end of the day.

Then and Now
Written by the people of Clacton
25th July 2014

Never has so much been owed to so few.
I still think of you every day, Walter.
The arguments and fights we had as boys, but we were always friends
in the end.
You hated it when people wasted food.
Do you remember how we collected shrapnel after air raids
which we sold for sweets when we were evacuated to Wales?
I miss the comradeship.
My friends, brothers, real heroes
who gave their lives, and limbs for freedom.
For others.
Unselfish, loving, hopeful.
Brave men and women.
Memories gone by now...
A word, a sound, a bomb whistles by, or perhaps a sigh?
The world has failed.
What have we learned?
Missiles still fly, innocent people still die.
Lest we forget....

It was a great day. Thanks to The Grand Theatre of Lemmings and to all who passed by, aged from 8 -80's, and added their voice to the memories of Then And Now....
www.lemmingstheatre.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/theatreoflemmings

1.00-5.00pm Saturday June 14th 2014

Are you a writer looking for advice and support? Spread the Word is London’s writer development agency, funded by the Arts Council to nurture writing talent, and they are offering short, drop-in professional development and advice sessions for writers. Come along and have a chat with me about how to get involved with Spread the Word’s diverse writing programme.


Look forward to seeing you there


Venue: Keats House Museum, 10 Keats Grove, London NW3 2RR
Advance booking is not available for this event. Just drop in for a chat any time on the day.

Write Here in Morden this week.

2.00 - 4.00 Morden Library: Thursday 24th April

Book as usual through www.spreadtheword.org.uk

This week we will explore Character and Place through creative exercises and word games.  Check out the Random Word Game here