Nearly a year since my first post. No zillions of followers ? No best selling books ? (yet)
What to do next ? Keep my nose to the grindstone ? Sounds excruciating, a grindstone being something used for sharpening knives, not noses. Far more painful than a mere ‘ once more into the breach’
How about I will work harder ?
Sinister, surely ?…Boxer’s response to everything life on Animal Farm threw at him, all the way to the knacker’s yard.
Work harder, yes, but enjoy that work too. For ten years now, staying sane and staying calm has tested me almost to destruction. Add serious mental illness, not mine , quite a lot of money too, definitely not mine, Agatha Christie could tell the story far better than me.
Who are you ? Not usually a question you’d expect, from government officials, in the country where you were born. Proofs of identity were rejected, repeatedly, even my original flood stained birth certificate. Then someone had the bright idea of adding my health records. The NHS is very far from the infallible and x revered by many Brits, ( check, for instance, UK cancer five year survival rates, child mortality, and deaths in childbirth. ) Several years were missing, ( NHS, happens all the time) but they could produce the proof of where I was born, when, and the names of both parents. Ten years into this, I know quite a few senior medics, and police officers. Instead of warnings about wasting their time, I’m working with both. Vulnerable people protecting from abuse , including people struggling with mental illness. ( Every record has been destroyed. An Inspector Calls, )
Cassandra’s Phoenix is almost ready. Launch date ? Soon. In 2020, nothing’s definite. We’ve almost finalised the cover design. In this unspeakable year, I wanted to write a book with a happy ending, or rather, since I’m aiming to write a trilogy, the promise of happiness, and not just for Cassie. Cassie and her friends will find a new way of living. Cultivating their gardens ? Probably. Where ? Wait and see.
Cassandra’s Phoenix began when a major publisher invited me to their office in London, then asked for synopses of five more books. One of the Hachette group, and if you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know this didn’t go well. Recovering, slowly, from mono/glandular fever, I wrote those synopses, started work on the first, Then my agent died of cancer In fairy tales, I would have found someone else at once. we’d sign that magical deal. In the 21st century ? No fairy tales, not even East of the Sun.
Next ? Submitting without an agent, a book made it from the slush pile to a promising dialogue with another major publisher… They wanted a plot development. I couldn’t and wouldn’t write it, because, as I didn’t dare to explain, the development they wanted mirrored , not closely but exactly the ongoing experience of a close friend. Roman a clef ? Not an option. My loss, maybe, but if I’d written that painful storyline, they could still turn me down. Unknowable, but, mentored by The Spy, once a very young WWII codebreaker/linguist, I listened to her life changing advice.
‘ Publishing has changed. Do it now. You’ve no time to lose.’
Here’s the synopsis :
Cassandra’s Phoenix
Love wouldn’t be so disastrous if the right people loved each other, No loving family, sadly, but Cassandra seemed to have everything else, even brains. When Laurie Rendall didn’t want her, Cassie moved in with clever Mark, thought he loved her. One day, they’d marry. They had each other and their child, lived in a pretty village. Mark’s software’s brilliant, Cassie’s journalism hard-hitting. Then Mark fell in love, must marry the mother of his new child. When Cassie and Mark’s weeks old daughter died in a car crash, Mark and Felicity claimed four year old Ella too. Activist, allegedly, is Cassie fit to be a parent ?
‘ Go away’ says Anna, Cassie’s omniscient lawyer friend, Pangloss to Cassie’s Candide, ‘Let the dust settle.’
On her travels with Ella, Cassie’ s camera records broken lives, finds healing. Some old friends seem like Job’s. Anna’s changed too . Then Rendall finds Cassie again.
Candide ? One of my favourite books. To survive covid and worse, meaning lockdowns global economic collapse, and all politicians, however well meaning, il faut cultiver notre jardins. So far, we’ve grown only the easy stuff, beans, potatoes, rhubarb, but we’re getting the hang of it. No plums, yet, and someone else planted the apples and pears. Chickens ? No need. Neighbours sell their surplus, keep the foxes out too. At my first uni, I had to study Candide twice over. History insisted we keep up languages, Politics/Philosophy prescribed Voltaire, the genius who financed his career by working out how to rig the French lottery. Essential reading, especially in 2020. Instead of the Lisbon earthquake, covid. Next, after Candide ? Try the Treatise on Tolerance ? Some of Cassie’s old friends seem like Job’s ? Ever read the Book of Job ?
Behold, there came a great wind out of the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and they are dead…
Cassie loses one child in a road accident. The children were on a contact visit with their father. Suspect activist, she faces losing her surviving child too. Sounds grim ? Far too grim to be fun ? Nobody can live happily ever after without a few trials. In East of the Sun, the Prince is doomed to marry a troll. He needs rescuing. And Laurie, the love of Cassie’s life ? Maybe he needs rescuing too ?
East of the Sun, West of the Moon, sat nav won't like that 