Category Archives: Personal

Local libraries

I know, two posts in a day, how unexpected!

After I finished writing my last post I had a few jobs to do before I could go to the library. I had to take a book back. Well, I just made it, they were closing the blinds, a minute more and I’d have missed them entirely.

We’re fairly lucky, I suppose, that despite the threats to close local library’s we’ve managed to keep ours, if at reduced hours. Until late last year the library was open until half seven three nights a week and until 5.30pm the other two nights, plus 9 – 2 on a saturday. It is now open 9 – 5.30 everyday and 9 – 2 on a saturday. And the next nearest is only a half hour bus ride away. So, fairly lucky.

Many communities have not been so lucky. This is terrible. I know from a lifetimes acquaintance with the local library that it is not just a place to borrow books. Its a community centre and meeting place, local notice board for clubs and societies, access to the internet, a safe place for children to do their homework, an extension to the local schools and somewhere those who might other wise be isolated can feel welcomed and included. Staffed by members of the community (mostly, here at least) and provided for the community, they are essential, especially in isolated areas.

Not long ago the library got flooded and was shut for the best part of a month. The staff put on a skeleton service in the civil hall next door and tried to carry on, but everyone was pleased when it re-opened. The building is a dodgy sixties prefab, too small for the community, which has grown so much since then. There are only two computers, constantly in demand and booked. We could do with a new, bigger and more comfortable building to house what is essentially our community centre.

But we won’t get it.

Cuts in council budgets mean that when other libraries are closing the local county council won’t spend money improving an old one, and the town council can’t afford to.

And the provincial in me wants to say that the county council has no love for my little town, despite it making significant contributions to the council’s budget, so we won’t get anything even if we need it. Yes, that feeling is fairly common, although not necessarily justified.

So, value your library, its not just a building full of books.

Bye.

Rose

Local paper

Our local paper does this section called ‘First Person’ and recently the asked for submissions to it. I’ve been thinking about what I’d write about. And then, because they are awesome, my niece and nephew provided the inspiration.

I’m going to write a 400 word article about the importance of youth groups to primary school children, email it in and hope to get it published. Wish me luck.

Rosemarie

xXx

Songs and History

Look I have to admit this here and now: I’m a bit of a geek. Seriously. There is a reason I’m admitting to this.

I was listening to Frank Turner’s album ‘England Keep My Bones’ the other day. The song ‘English Curse’. I like it, don’t get me wrong, but there were so many historical inaccuracies that I couldn’t resist taking it apart and pointing them out. It’s a disease I tell you!

So, because I can’t really write out the whole song I’ll pick out phrases and make my points.

‘From the shores of Normanday King William came

To Albion fair King Harold to slay

With greed in his heart and a scurrilous claim.’

(1) William the Bastard

William’s claim to the throne was unlikely, rather than scurrilous. He claimed, after his successful invation, that King Edward had promised him the throne when he died and that Harold had accepted in when he was a ‘guest’ in Normandy. Yet this makes no sense. When Edward was in Normandy he was a young man and it looked unlikely that he would inherit the throne. And even if he did, he would have his own heirs, of Alfred’s line. And then when he did inherit the throne and married there were already heirs, nephews and cousins, available whether he had his own sons or not. Neither in English law nor Norman law did William have a claim to the throne.

Scurrilous is an adjective which means:

making or spreading scandalous claims about someone with the intention of damaging their reputation: a scurrilous attack on his integrity

(Oxford English Dictionary)

So in a sense (that Harold had gone back on his oath) William was making a scurrilous claim, but that wasn’t his entire reason. Greed, and envy, however were. He never admitted to it, as far as anyone knows, but there is a hypothesis that William wanted to bee a king in order to make himself an equal to his nominal overlord in France, the king of France. This greed resulted in a false claim, illegal invasion and then centuries of warfare as the Kings of England and France tried to assert control over each other.

In the years after the invasion there were several rebellions. An early rebellion in the west country (in 1066/67) was incited/financed by King Harold Godwinson’s mother Gytha of Wessex. There was Hereward the Wake in the Fenland around Ely and the brutally repressed risings in the earldom of Northumbria. William didn’t feel comfortable enough in his new kingdom until the 1070’s. There is no doubt however that many evil deeds were done.

‘Now John was a blacksmith, an honest old man

He raised up his children and he worked with his hands

In his family’s forge and a patch of land’

(2) Anglo-Saxon men’s names

John is an unlikely name to find among the English in the pre-Norman era. Possibly among foreign priest or merchants but not among the English lower classes. Names such as John, William and Henry came to dominate in the decades after the Norman conquest, when new fashions and politcal expediency made it prudent to discontinue the older names.Within a couple of generations it was extrmely unlikely to find a man named Harold or Godwin. But if William was riding through his New Forest in the 1080’s and came across an old blacksmith, the blacksmith wouldn’t have introduced himself as John.

It is also unlikely that he would have owned his own land. While land tenure in Anglo-Saxon England was different to that of Norman England. most open land still belonged to the upper classes. If the smithy was in a town or village, as is most likely, then it is possible that the blacksmith would own the building it was situated in.

‘In the dark of the new forest……..

For hunting grounds in the Wessex trees

He took the land for his own.’

(3)The New Forest

The New Forest was established in 1079 as the king’s ‘new hunting forest’. It is a mixture of open pasture, pools and oak/beech woods, and includes towns and villages. A ‘forest’ did not denote a wooded area but an administrative area belonging to the king who had all the hunting rights within that area. It can hardly be described as ‘dark’.

GO visit the New Forest; they claim it hasn’t changed much in 900 years; they have there own breed of pony! You can see bats. And deer. there’s a really well presevered Roman villa.

‘Your first born son’s warm blood will run upon the english earth.

Now king williams son was Rufus the red………………

But John’s curse it called out and and lord Tirel fired low

His arrow struck Rufus with a sickening blow

And he fell from his horse to the ground below.’

(4) William II Rufus – his life and eath in brief

William II Rufus was William I’s third son. He was born in approximately 1056 in Normandy. William II was called Rufus because he supposedly had a red face and yellow hair. He became king in 1087 and died in 1100. He was buried at Winchester and was succeeded by his brother Henry.

Most of his reign was spent fighting his elder brother Robert Curthose for control of Normandy. His barons eventually rebelled because they couldn’t afford to keep paying for his war. During his reign he had to deal with further rebellions in Northumbria and along the Welsh Marches.

William was killed while out hunting at Brockenhurst in the New Forest on 2nd August 1100. He was with GIlbert de Clare, his younger brother Robert de Clare, Walter Tirel (their brother-in-law) and William’s younger brother William Beauclerc. During the hunt Tirel shot at a stag and hit the king in the chest. He died within minutes. When Walter Tirel realised he’d killed his king he jumped on a horse and escaped to France.

People expected Robert Curthose to become king, however Henry Beauclerc was on the spot, as it were, and he decided he wanted the throne. He rode to Winchester, where the kings gold was kept and claimed the throne. He was crowned on the 5th August 1100. His claim was supported by the Clare family, who were generously rewarded, and although Tirel never returned to England his son kept the family’s land.

Robert II Curthose threatened to invade but was paid off with an annuity of £2000.

It has been suggested that the barons, angry at the taxation William imposed, frustrated that their rebellions had been unsuccessful, and with the blessing of Henry I Beauclerc, organised William’s murder. It is a possibility, however it ignores the fact that hunting accidents were common. Tirel’s flight can equally be explained, killing a king, even accidentally, was severely punished.

It’s a good song, it can be chanted, a proper rabble rousing song. Here’s what jumped out at me when I listened to it.

Okay, I’ll stop now. I’m being pedantic, I know I am. I can’t help it.

Bye for now

Rose

xXx

NaNoWriMo part 2

I started well. I had an idea, it developed over a few days and i think it could be quite good. I managed to find the time to make notes and then write them up in to a coherent narrative. I have a note book with different ‘scenes’ in, but i haven’t actually managed to get very far with the novel.

I managed 1000 words a day for the first week then got distracted writing short stories for a group of friends and haven’t got back in to my novel. As well as that, i feel that its a bit uninspired and i’m really struggling to maintain any momentum.

I’m going to keep bashing away at it and hopefully make something useful out of the work i’ve done so far.

 

National Novel Writing Month – Hmm, might give it a go

National Novel Writing Month starts in November.

 The object of NaNoWriMo, as I understand it, is to try to write what is essencially the first draft (50,000 words) of a novel in a month and then upload it to the website. I first read about NaNoWriMo earlier in the year in one of the writing magazines I get regularly. It looks like fun, I think i’m going to haev a go at it this year.

 I have a tendancy to edit as I go along so I think it could be an interesting exercise in just getting the initial story down on paper, and then tidying it up when November’s over. Since I also struggle to finish novels (but not short stories once i get going) it might help me get past that problem as well.

Happy writing

Rosemarie

Oh, dear, someone’s decided to do a remake of Conan the Barbarian

I’ve just seen a poster on the side of a bus, someone has done a remake of that eighties sword and sorcery extravaganza ‘Conan the Barbarian’. Conan originally appeared in a series of short stories written by Robert E. Howard in 1932 for Weird Tales. In 1982 Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in a film version, which was not bad I suppose (personally I preferred ‘Red Sonja’, a film also based on one of Howard’s short stories).

So in homage to the genre I have decided to write a short sword and sorcery snippet. I’ve never written S&S before, so there’s a good chance it could turn into a parody.

——————————————————————————————-

Borderlands: Visit to Iderford

‘I’m bored, why are we here again?’ Tobold asked Hibalt, his nondescript travelling, raiding and drinking companion. They were walking through the riverside market place of Iderford after spending three weeks chasing a friend down the river Ider, from Iderhead, three hundred miles to the north-east.

‘Because, you great steaming nit, we have to find Gorgan.’

‘Why? It’s not as though she’ll still have your book. She’s probably sold it, traded it for beer or burnt it to cook her tea with by now.’ Tobold really wanted to find the nearest brothel that took Barbarian Card and spend the night in warm, clean-ish bed.

‘I don’t care, I’m still going to find her and get it back.’ Hibalt continued to look around him, searching for the four foot thief of books. It was not going to be easy, Gorgan could blend in, she could easily hide in a school and nobody would notice. Not that there were many schools out here in the Borderlands, but those strange new priests were opening up schools all the time. Not that they stayed open for long.

‘What’s so important about the book anyway, you never read it.’ Since neither of them could read.

‘Sometimes a scribe reads it to me. It has all sorts of useful advice. You know that time we were stuck in Candara and couldn’t find anyone who spoke Knuttish.’

‘Yes?’ Of course he remembered, it’s hard to forget a place when you have been chased out of it by armed men.

‘Well, the book had all these phrases in it, in Candaran.’

‘Yes, but we still got run out of town.’

‘Ah well, I think that was because I said the words wrong.’

‘Didn’t that priest tell you which words to use when we showed him the book?’

‘I forgot which words they were supposed to be.’

‘That explains it then.’

‘Shut up. I’m looking for Gorgan. She’s bound to have been here.’

‘We should ask around at the inns.’

‘You never get past the first three.’

‘Well, I like to be certain. I’m thourough.’

‘If you say so. You go hunting round the inns, I’ll try the market.’

‘Right, see you later.’ Tobold skipped gleefully away in a most un-barbarian-like fashion, to find the nearest pub.

Hibalt resumed his search. He found a likely looking stall-holder, calling forth his wares.

‘Excuse me, kind sir, could you tell me, has anybody tried to sell you a book lately?’

‘Look around, you daft thug, this is a second hand book stall, of course people have tried to sell me books, I just wish I could get people to buy ‘em instead.’

Hibalt considered reaching for his sword and running the man through, but then his therapist’s voice popped in to his head, reminding him about inappropriate reactions. Hibalt took a deep breath and counted down from ten. He tried a new strategy,

‘Sir, I am enquiring about a specific book, my book has a tattered red leather cover, with an etching of the Black Hills and Borderlands on the first page.’

‘Oh, a Red Book Tour Guide? We have one here sir, five pennies.’

‘No, that’s not my book, my book is special. But it’s very similar. My book was stolen from me, by a four foot siren.’

‘A four foot siren? Have you been drinking?’

‘Not recently, I’m on a program, to reduce my drinking. But I really want my book back.’

‘Okay, does it have any distinguishing features?’

‘Not really, a priest wrote my name in it once, when I tried to learn to read, and write.’

‘Well, that might be useful. What is your name?’

‘Hibalt Treebreaker.’

‘Right, well if anybody tries to sell me a Red Book Tour Guide with the name Hibalt Treebreaker written in it, I’ll keep it to one side in case I meet you again. What did you say the thief looked like?’

‘Four foot tall, blond hair, big boobs, large sword. You can’t miss Gorgan, pretty as a picture, she is.’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘Oh and sometimes she dresses as a priestess, just to confuse people.’

‘What a strange woman.’

‘Yes, but so much fun. We used to go on long raiding holidays when we were younger, you’d never know it now.’

‘Have things gone wrong between you?’ The trader couldn’t help himself. It wasn’t often that a barbarian felt the need to confide in him; usually they just robbed him and ran away.

‘Yes,’ Hibalt started weeping, ‘It all started when we argued over raiding the Temple of Sweetest Flowers in Manchura, she said we should because it was a symbol of female oppression, and I didn’t want to because the last barbarians to raid the Temple ended up hanging from the trees like bunting.’

‘What did you decide?’

‘She went off to raid the temple and I didn’t see her for three months after that. I thought she was dead. Apparently they thought she was a novice and it took her that long to escape.’

‘There, there, I’m sure you’ll sort it out. Why don’t you go and have a quiet pint over at the Blue Bull? My cousin’s the barman there; they have the best ale for miles.’

‘I told you, I don’t drink.’

With that the morose barbarian tipped up the hapless traders’ bench, scattering books and ancient scrolls all over the road.

‘That’s more like it,’ thought the trader, ‘I know where I am now.’  He then called for the watch and Hibalt had to dash for the river.

Tobold had been enjoying a pint in the beer garden of the Blue Bull, smiling at the barmaid and exchanging tall tales with other visiting barbarians, when Hibalt dashed past followed by five burly watchmen.

‘Do excuse me gentlemen, I really must go, my sidekick appears to be in some sort of trouble. See you around.’

With that he gripped his sword hilt, and gave chase.

————-

Safely back in their vessel and several miles downriver Tobold finally stopped rowing, turned in his seat and looked at Hibalt, who was manning the steering oar,

‘Well, what have you done now?’

——————————————————————————————-

Sorry about that, I couldn’t help myself. 1000 words of silliness. It’s entirely possible Tobold and Hibalt will make another appearance, when I decide what they’re going to do next.

Surprising Inspiration, or, where I get ideas from

It’s not always easy finding ideas and sometimes we all get writers block, but there are ways to get through it. You have to dig around and find the ideas malingering in your mind. But where?

When I get really desperate for ideas I try a few things, and these are some of them

  • The Name Game – Go throught the alphabet, two letters at a time, and invent names e.g. Annabelle Buttler, Charles Day, then mess the names around and try to see if they spark something off
  • Something similar is to write a list of occupations in one column and then an list of hobbies in another column. Cut them up and pick out one from each, e.g. guitar playing, pharmacist or skiing, cook, and see what can be made from them. Combining this with the name game gives you a couple of characters, jobs and hobbies, and you have a start.
  • Facebook is another place to look. Try having a scan down your friends status updates. People are very frank on Facebook, and can sometimes write very odd stuff. Your friends random comments can give you a great jumping off point for an article or story.
  • Short story competitions – look through back issues of writing magazines or on the internet, some have themed competitions for stories and poetry. Take the theme and write, even if you have no interest whatsoever in entering the competition. Last year I found such a competition and wrote a piece, it took me so long, since at the time I didn’t have a computer and had to type the competition entry up at the library, that I missed the deadline entirely. I’ll probably go over it at some point and either enter it for another competition or possibly post it on here.
  • Similarly, go through any old stories/articles and try to look at them from a different angle – play ‘what if’.
  • Paintings, prints and photographs. These capture moment in time -how, why, what, where, when.

Thats a few of my ideas, probably you’ll have your own stratagies, but i hope these help.

 

Written following a conversation with one of my friends who is currently struggling with writers block – inspiration from and for Ellie. Good luck, chuck.

Welcome to my writing blog

This is my first blog about my writing. It’s purpose is to showcase that writing.

I already write as a contributing writer on www.suite101.com, and have writen several articles on that website. I like to write both fiction and non-fiction, occaisionally peotry but not often. I enjoy researching for non fiction articles and for the background information required for some of the fiction I write. I am working on several projects at the moment.

I will be posting short stories, excerpts from longer works and occaisional articles.

Feedback and constructive criticism is welcomed