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I have a unique singing voice. It defies description. There is a terrible mismatch between the notes I hear in my head and the sound that comes out of my mouth. An example of this and, one my husband never tires of reminding me about, was the time I started to sing White Riot by the Clash. I was happily singing away when it was pointed out to me that I was singing the lyrics of this contentious punk anthem to the tune of Moon River. I had no idea I was doing this. It just came out of my mouth that way. My brain is more battered juke box than sleek ipod.
And yet I love writing song lyrics. It’s another opportunity for me to create characters and give them a voice. A few friends and I formed an a capella heavy metal band and for this project the persona that I created to help me write the lyrics was a 15 year old lad and his pet tarantula. (I had been politely requested not to sing!).
I have long nursed a secret desire to pen the perfect power ballad. I have been trying to write the lyrics for years and like the search for a good picture book text I have found it incredibly hard to hit upon the right balance between the complexity/ cleverness of the idea, the sincerity of the emotion and the simplicity of language. Still its fun trying.
Songs and chants are a large feature of the sand dune world that I am creating for the Sand Dancers series published by Piccadilly Press. Going to see nu-folk bands inspired me when writing Soul Love. The title was inspired by the David Bowie song. My current story, ‘Magic Moments and the Dull Bits in Between,’ includes one character who writes murder ballads and another who penned the 1980’s hit ‘Canyon Love’ which means hours of caterwauling for me. The Magic Moments bit in the title comes from the wonderful Burt Bacharach song immortalised by Perry Como.
When I’m writing fiction and its going well the ideas and the words tap out a rhythm in my mind. There is an unconscious pulse beating between the words and the image or idea that I am trying to communicate. But is there also a bizarre mangling discord between what I think I’m saying and what appears on the page? Will my rants translate into Moon Rivers? I certainly hope so.
I have seen three kingfishers in my life so far. The first time was one autumn day when I was twenty and visiting my first ever RSPB bird sanctuary in Ynys Hir in Mid Wales. I just caught a flash of turquoise. My next sighting was on another autumn day fifteen years later on an artificial lake in Chingford. Again it was just a fleeting glimpse. On Sunday at Minismere nature reserve in Suffolk just as I was leaving a hide I turned and looked through the window behind me. A kingfisher rose up from the reeds and hovered above the surface of the pond. It was an intense three seconds as my heart stopped and my mind’s eye worked overtime desperately trying to preserve the image. Why did my halcyon moments mean so much to me?
In Greek mythology Alcyone was the daughter of Aeolus the guardian of the winds. When her beloved husband, Ceyx was drowned she threw herself into the sea and was turned into a kingfisher. When she builds her nest at sea Aeolus stills the wind for seven days to keep the next generation of his family safe.
Another legend says that the kingfisher buries her dead mate in the winter before laying her eggs in a nest of fish bones which then floats out to sea. This image makes me remember the pagan myths about the moon goddess carrying the body of the dead king, symbolic of the old year, to his final resting place. Then I find myself in the realm of the Fisher King. The wounded king who is waiting for a knight to return and bring the secret that will heal himself and bring life to his desolated kingdom.
As I write this post I realise that the kingfisher and the stories that surround it have helped me to clarify what is driving my passion to write at the moment. I now understand what the theme is that I am trying to capture and keep. It is hard to put into bare words. It needs a calm sea, a still wind and a story to express it
I woke up this morning with the First Person Blues. (It was two weeks ago when it actually happened). I opened a historical novel and read the first line and stopped. It was written in the first person. I stopped reading. I felt cheated.
Then I went back to the story I’m working on. Its current title is called ‘Magic Moments and the dull bits in between.’ It is a story set in a fancy dress shop in a northern seaside town with a cast of characters that includes an incognito movie star, drag queens, a new age dandy and a flashback to 1976. It was written in the first person.
I always begin writing in the first person. It is often the music of a character’s voice that inspires me to write. Now as I am overcome by the First Person Blues I start to rewrite. Everything changes. The vision of the story broadens. I allow myself a few sentences to linger over descriptions. I agonise over the tone of the mysterious authorial voice. The rhythm of the language changes. I literally feel on top of the story. An all seeing eye and not a hand held camera.
Does anyone else ever get an attack of the First Person Blues?
I need my five foul weather friends to steer me through the stormy seas of a writing life.
1. Feed back Friends. These are a special breed. They read and listen to your work and give you their thoughts and impressions. They don’t try and rewrite your work or take on your story. They are sensitive to the stage you are at in the process and give you space to nurture an idea but also help you to clearly see what is working and what is not. You return the favour and listen to their work. They celebrate your success. You celebrate theirs but also give you space to have a jealous - ‘it should have been me’ moment.
2. Every writer should have a Grammar Puss. Someone who can explain to you about what a lacuna is or who cares deeply about the correct use of the apostrophe. They can tell you the grammatical reason why a sentence isn’t working or why a paragraph doesn’t make sense.
3. The Factoid is the friend you can text late at night and ask such things as, ‘What year did David Bowie sing Starman on Top of the Pops? Or ‘Who was the prime minister in 1911?’ They are also great to have on your team in a pub quiz.
4. A Full Fridge Friend is the one who understands when your head has spent too long in the land of dreamy dreams to either shop or construct anything resembling a meal. They put food in front of you and accept the silent chomping and wild eyed staring.
5. Then there is that mysterious Imaginary Friend. The friend who has been with me since childhood weaving stories, creating worlds, providing escape in difficult times, asking questions of me and enriching my existence.
I have been feeling heartsnipped lately. Heartsnipped is a sand sprite word for when you feel as if a bit of your heart is missing and you can never feel completely settled or content. This feeling comes over me when I have to go into to school meetings and talk about ‘Impact and percentages of progress towards meeting targets’ rather than about children.
The pain eases when Chantal Joseph our dancer teacher comes in each week and I watch the children dance. Everyone is included and the children work hard and literally stretch themselves. Children who have additional needs and struggle with language or dyslexia suddenly become fluent and expressive. Experiencing the joy and delight that dancing brings inspires me too and has a big influence on my Sand Dancers series. It got me thinking about how I could turn dance into words. The results so far are exciting and I am developing a blog called danceintowords to share the ideas. During the last literacy session I ran with a year three class there were only two instructions; write or dance your idea if you are stuck for words. The boys in particular loved this and one boy produced four pages of lyrical writing expressing his feelings about being caught in a sandstorm.
Last Friday Chantal and I were invited to run a ‘Dance into words’ workshop at the fabulous WriteAway Annual conference which was called, ‘Read, play, think, create: generating delight in learning. I was nervous at first. What if the group refused to dance or no-one came? As is says in the sand sprites guide book, The Sands of Time,
‘A Sand Dancer is never afraid
Of facing the music and dancing’
The session went well and afterwards I realised that my heart was feeling much less snipped. The second book in the Sand Dancers series is called Blue Moon Ballet and is available now.
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Your blog is great
If you like, come back and visit mine: http://b2322858.blogspot.com/
Thank you!!Wang Han Pin(王翰彬)
From Taichung,Taiwan(台灣)