You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June, 2007.
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The Tart of Fiction (aka writer Elizabeth Baines) has set writers some questions to answer. Since Arvon is the home of good writing in the UK, we thought we’d present them here and invite you to answer. Either in your head or here on the Arvon Blog (hit “Your starter for ten…” and then scroll down to enter your answers in the blank box). Or on your own blog. Do link to us if you post your answers online. Although these are mainly with fiction writers in mind, all writers can have a go.
1. Do you outline?
2. Do you write straight through a book, or do you sometimes tackle the scenes out of order?
3. Do you prefer writing with a pen or using a computer?
4. Do you prefer writing in first person or third?
5. Do you listen to music while you write?
6. How do you come up with the perfect names for your characters?
7. When you’re writing, do you ever imagine your book as a television show or movie?
8. Have you ever had a character insist on doing something you really didn’t want him/her to do?
9. Do you know how a book is going to end when you start it?
10. Where do you write?
11. What do you do when you get writer’s block?
12. What size increments do you write in (either in terms of wordcount, or as a percentage of the book as a whole)?
13. How many different drafts did you write for your last project?
14. Have you ever changed a character’s name midway through a draft?
15. Do you let anyone read your book while you’re working on it, or do you wait until you’ve completed a draft before letting someone else see it?
16. What do you do to celebrate when you finish a draft?
17. One project at a time, or multiple projects at once?
18. Do your books grow or shrink in revision?
19. Do you have any writing or critique partners?
20. Do you prefer drafting or revising?
Bathed, creamed and combed,
I choose my evening self
from the folded personae available.
A supporting role, perhaps.
Empathy in pink,
and understudied, comfortable shoes.
A mixed message may be conveyed
by separates.
The dress overstates things,
suggesting joined-up thinking,
all-of-a-piece
from head to hem.
I have emerged from muddy neutrals
and wish to discard
the comfort blanket.
But perhaps I’ll save the evening dress and diamonds
till Friday.
This new poem was written by Diana Harris at the Hurst - John Osborne’s former home which is now Arvon’s latest writing house where over a thousand writers every year spend a week of their lives devoted to their writerly craft.
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‘I have the best view in England’
John Osborne, playwright, on the view down the Clun Valley from his garden at the Hurst in Shropshire
On Saturday June 23rd and Sunday 24th from 2pm to 6pm visitors to Clun Gardens Open will be able, for the first time, to see for themselves John Osborne’s ‘best view in England.’
For the last eight years of his life, the author of Look Back in Anger, enjoyed the elevated view down the Clun Valley and other delights of his 30 acre estate. Peter Salmon, centre director of The John Osborne Arvon Centre said “We are very happy and privileged to be joining with 14 other gardens in and around Clun. Naturally, I think The Hurst has something special to offer. The woodland here is very fine. We have a splendid tulip tree which should be in bloom and a very fine stand of Wellingtonias which must have cost a fortune in the 19th century.”
Each year nearly 1,000 established and would-be writers attend the many courses at The Hurst. “We have devised two trails that take the visitor past the house, around the gardens, through the woods, to Osborne’s view” said Peter. “Outside the house one of us will be telling racy anecdotes from John Osborne’s life here. In addition we have selected twenty or so quotations from garden and countryside poems, which add a touch of I-Spy to the walk.”
“They can take a cup of tea and a cake by the pool before having a look at the picturesque Dingle. Week after week we get the chance to see how people are inspired by the surroundings here, I’m sure our garden visitors will feel the same.
It’s fitting that Clun Gardens Open is in aid of St George’s Church, as both John and Helen Osborne are buried there.”
The Hurst (Clunton, Craven Arms, Shropshire, SY7 0JA) is approached up a private drive off B4368 Craven Arms to Clun road, one mile before Clun. Tickets from The Hurst and other gardens on the day. A ticket for all gardens is £4, one garden only 50p. Call Dan on 01588 640658 for more details about the Hurst and our writing courses at John Osborne’s former home.
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The web is a writer’s friend. Let’s take a spin. Start with separated by a common language - an entire blog devoted to the sharp linguistic eye of “Lynneguist”, who specialises in spotting differences between American and British English. And so while we’re thinking of American English, here’s one of its poets - Frank O’Hara - but put to music and made into a short poem-film on You Tube. It seems appropriate to the style he pioneered - personism - which was all about writing that was addressed to somebody. Have you got a case of the fantods? Do you know how to honeyfuggle? Michael Quinion’s World Wide Words is a never-ending delight of word play and history. You can fill your novel or poems with amazing words thanks to him (and get email updates when Mr Quinion has new material). But he doesn’t help you pronounce words however - best leave that to this interesting Wikipedia page. For all your disputed pronounciation needs. Now, moving on, and literally moving on, let’s go for a walk. A modern kind of walk. Download the audio file onto your mp3 player and start at the special location in London for your marvellous literary iTour of Subversive Scribes. (Talking about scribes, you can join Arvon Friends as one. Joining Arvon Friends supports Arvon’s social mission to extend amazing and fulfilling creative writing experiences to young people and adult groups who wouldn’t ordinarily be able to participate.) John Sewell donated a new poem of his to Arvon Friends Online and the first ever online bookshop-in-residence, The Little Apple based in York, continue their Gilbert White-style musings on life without 3-for-2s.
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Ever noticed how nature’s colour coordinated? Neither had we…until now that is.
In early spring flowers tended to be yellow which showed an amazing fit with the colour scheme around Easter. Coincidence? I think not… And then suddenly, as if the wizard of Oz has decreed a colour change, purple is all the fashion. We can’t wait to see what colour will be the next flavour of the month.
But it’s not all flowers we are keeping a close watch on, this is the time of year our own produce demands attention so we are looking for the best spot for our tomato and chilli plants, we are tidying our herb patch and we are even trying to grow some artichokes which will hopefully bear fruit next year. We are especially keen on our edibles this year because we are expecting a group of foodies this summer on our food writing course (2 – 7 July) who will be making the most of our vegetables to try and impress Sophie Grigson and Alistair Hendy. For a week Totleigh will be turned into a foodies paradise with a strong emphasis on fresh, organic and local food. We have already put in the application for a Michelin star.
Huib Boekelman
Centre Director, Totleigh Barton
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Sometimes life becomes so surreal, pinching yourself just won’t bring you back to earth. I had to go to a takeaway to remind myself of normality, amongst the debris of cardboard plates, plastic cups and discarded smiles.
It all started at breakfast - with a beaming smile attached to twinkling eyes and a white beard encircling the round jolly face of the man opposite.
“ G-day’ he said with that unmistakable down under twang “I have been belly dancing on the fringe all night.” Quite an opener when I am staring at a raft of English breakfast on the plate in front of me, trying to decide which saturated fat felon to cast away. I love first conversations - they always lead to new places and people and lives.
“You belly danced?” I ask.
His roar shakes the room, and his twinkling glances off the silver cutlery. He’s all llight and merriment and sharp observation and joy - this breakfast companion from the other side of the world. There is something other-worldy about him too. He looks as if he could have stepped out of Lord of the Rings.
“No, no. I merely observed. It was the welsh women. They belly danced. And can they belly dance. My…” He is all appreciate chuckles as he spoons his muesli.
I ought to explain that I am in Wales for the Guardian Hay Festival 2007. As Director of The Arvon Foundation, I am chairing four writers’ events: Esther Freud and Rupert Thomson talking about their novels Love Falls and Death of a Murderer; Charles Leadbeater about his wiki work We Think; a discussion about the Myth and History of the Second World War with Owen Sheers, Justin Cartwright and Ben McIntyre; and then a conversation between the quirky american film maker and performance artist Miranda July and Marina ‘Tractors’ Lewycka. It’s pure joy to read their books.
There. So perhaps you get an idea of why I am here, in this beautiful Georgian house, with this wise gnome-like man eating breakfast and laughing.
But you only have part of the picture.
Another man comes in. Long and langurous with his beautiful wife. They sit down too.
“Ariane and I would like your royalties Sandy!’ roars the Lord of the Rings down under. ‘All of them. Make no mistake.”
The new breakfast companions have the same love of laughter too. And two new people join us with the same belly aching senses of humour. By now the breakfast table is rocking. The room is aglow with words and ideas.
Breakfast at 7am will never be the same again. In your wildest dreams, breakfast with Thomas Keneally and Alexander McCall Smith and James Naughtie never happens. But this is Hay, and as Thomas K gnomically says later in the day, “at Hay dreams come true.”
The Festival is now bigger than ever. There’s a new site, which is sophisticated with wide white marquees, duckboard walkways which have canopies over them to protect you from the inevtiable Hay storms of wind and rain. But wellies and walking boots are still needed. This is Hay at 20 years old - sassy, smart, committed, sparkling, intense and bigger. Writers are the superstars and the venues are packed with people eager to meet the writers, ask questions, jostle with ideas and just be together to appreciate literature. It’s the herd instinct gone wild - and it’s literature which has rounded about100,000 people together over 10 days from all parts of the country and the world. Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian writer who is one of Arvon’s patrons gives a key lecture called Writing on the Wall of Silence - about freedom of expression. The American writer Dave Eggers talks with Valentino Achak Deng about the book they have written together inspired by Valentino’s experiences in Sudan and Ethiopia to a packed audience of 1200 plus people. Superstar art historian Simon Schama bounces and cavorts his way through his presentation on why television and art are natural partners.
It’s showtime with substance - and people buying, holding and reading books.
Who said the book is dead when there can be so much life in them-there hills? Hay rocks. 20 years old and Hay rocks on and on.
Ariane is reading
Justin Cartwright - The Sing Before it is Sung
Esther Freud - Love Falls
Miranda July - No One Belongs Here More Than You
Charles Leadbeater - We Think
Marina Lewkcya - Two Caravans
Ben McIntyre - The Zig Zag Agent
Owen Sheers - Resistance
Rupert Thomson - Death of a Murderer
Ariane is listening to
Seth Lakeman - Freedom Fields - again and again and again!
need to get the new Rufus Wainwright soon too…
Ariane is watching
Jan Svankmeyer - Lunacy
Ariane is looking at
Anthony Gormley at the Hayward Gallery
