I wanted to write the book I have longed to read – a fictional journey through the mythic landscape of England. I never intended to write a novel set in the 1920s. I wanted to write about what are currently categorised in bookstores as ‘Earth Mysteries’ (ancient sites, leylines, folklore, hauntings, etc.) Researching the grandfather of modern geomancy, Alfred Watkins, for a storytelling performance in the Bath Literature Festival, got me under the skin of the times a little, and started me off. He was my ‘way in’.A lot of my favourite fiction is from the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century – the ‘early fantasists’ as I call them: William Morris, Jules Verne, HG Wells, H Rider Haggard, Edgar Allen Poe, HP Lovecraft, MR James, Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, ER Eddison, George Macdonald Fraser, and Hope Mirrlees. I discovered I was a fan of the era without ever realising it, and so I found it easier to relate to than I’d expected.
Three historic figures who interested me converged at that time also – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Alfred Watkins and Dion Fortune. This happy coincidence made me decide to set the story in 1923: a year after the publication of Doyle’s ‘The Coming of the Fairies’, Watkins pamphlet ‘Early British Trackways’ and the very year when Fortune moved to Glastonbury and wrote ‘The Secrets of Dr Tavener’.
Yet more contemporary events went into the pot also, creating a hybrid of fantasy and reality in my story – a cross-over that fascinates me.
The dark times of recent war have left their shadow – returning us it seems to the Gothic times of the Eighties, when we lived in the shadow of the Cold War and ‘ten minutes to midnight.’
Two of the most powerful events in recent years influenced my book’s gestation subconsciously; the death of Princess Diana and the resulting phenomenon surrounding her funeral: a very unBritish public outpouring of grief, and the vast tragedy of 9/11, when North America became a nation in mourning.
Somehow, I had to respond to these, albeit indirectly. Also, I felt the need to express how I felt about the global and human impact of war in Afghanistan and Iraq - and its legacy.
Against this backdrop I had been getting increasingly interested in the War Poets throughout the MA – largely due to David Jones being drawn to my attention in the module ‘Borders and Crossings: Active Boundaries.’ I studied ‘In Parenthesis’ for my ‘Creative Process’ project, and it was Jones’ statement that he wrote the piece ‘in a kind of space between’ that set me off on exploring notions of liminality – No Man’s Land being a powerful example. This seemed like the ‘ideal’ backdrop for my tale of ‘passing over’. The First World War phenomenon known as ‘The Angel of Mons’ – a mass-hallucination said to have been inspired by Arthur Machen’s short story ‘The Bowmen’- intrigued me. I loved the fluctuation between fact and fiction. This uncertainty in realitywas to be my territory – between these Symplagades I set out to navigate, having been told that my work had edge when the mythic met the mundane, and the universal was grounded in the particular.
Next, I wanted to achieve a strong sense of place, such as encapsulated by Hardy’s Wessex, but brought to its zenith, I think, by John Cowper Powys in such books as ‘A Glastonbury Romance’, and ‘Wolf Solent’. I wanted to celebrate the English landscape and heritage of literature. After looking to the Celtic fringes for inspiration in previous projects I wanted to look at the riches on my doorstep. Peter Alfred Please’s ‘Holine Trilogy’ advocated this ‘Travelling at Home’ – the title of the third in the series. His detailed accounts of ‘found stories’ illustrate the benefits of ‘wayside inspiration’, or writing ‘on the hoof’, as he calls it.
JRR Tolkien’s feeling for geography and journey’s of epic scale also inspired me – as did the fact that his fantasy world was born out of conflict, e.g. how his ‘bonding-in-peril’ and class-levelling experiences in the First World War helped forge the close relationship between Sam and Frodo in ‘The Lord of the Rings’.
Reading Virginia Woolf’s ‘Mrs Dalloway’ gave me some insight into the head of a woman in 1923, and into the period in general. And it made me interested in the recording of consciousness, time passing and sensory impressions. – a ‘stream of consciousness’ I attempted to depicted in the opening chapter, ‘The Dead of Winter’, set over one hour in Paddington Station. On a wider scale, I wished to track Maude’s state of mind over one year – she was to be my ‘Stephen Daedalus’.
My first attempt at a novel, ‘The Ghost Tree’, was set over a 1000 years in one place – this time I used several locations but set it over one year (excluding flashbacks).
Finally, I wanted to explore the notion of alignments – Watkins ‘leylines’ that so obsess Isambard on one level, but the alignments of our lives on a macrocosmic scale. The way we make sense of experience by creating a narrative – our own. The random events of existence only seem to have any meaning when we see them in hindsight – we get a perspective on them, and see the continuity, or at least our trajectory: a ‘grand narrative’, either actual or imagined. Maude, mourning her husband, reminisces on the nodal points of her life – the defining moments, milestones along the way, marking her progress, or sometimes detours or dead-ends.
This familiar idea of the journey as a metaphor for life I wanted to extend - exploring the possibility that it does not end with death. Of course, the way we live, and die, very much depends on our beliefs. I wanted to look at some of the myths we live, and die by, including Romanticism & Scepticism (Maude), Capitalism (Constance), Hedonism & Imperialism (Archibald), Catholicism (Maggie), Geomancy (Isambard), Spiritualism (the ladies of Eastbourne), Occultism (Dion Fortune), and Theosophy (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).However, the main characters are defined by more than their beliefs – which evolve or change (although we only see this in close-up through Maude). These categories serve only to summarise, and I did not devise my novel from such abstracts – the desire to journey was all, and to meet interesting people along the way.
So these were the aims I set out with – how was I to achieve them?
OBJECTIVES
My basic plan of action was as follows:
·Research
·Notes
·Draft
·Revision
·Submission
However, the writing of ‘The Long Woman’ was a far more organic process, so I shall explore it from that perspective in detail:
PROCESSES
RESEARCH
In a way, I have been researching this book all my life, for it encapsulates many of the things I feel most passionate about. However, I needed to find out specific details, so I used field trips, museums, novels, magazines, newspapers, the World Wide Web, etc.
As this was to be a historical novel, or at least set in a historical period, I needed to ‘get it right.’ This was to be challenge for me, since I have mainly written from the imagination – although my first book was set against the backdrop of a 1000 years of English history.
One of Maude’s peccadilloes is to write lists. Emulating this device, I will write a list about the range of influences & experiences that informed the writing of the novel:
THE LONG WOMAN: RESEARCH LIST
·Childhood experiences; the death of a friend/ meeting an old rambler.
·The grief/agoraphobia and depression of my mother.
·Father working for British Rail
·Knowing & living with friends who have suffered a loss in their lives.
·16 years exploring the ancient sites of Britain & Ireland.
·Death & funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.
·9/11 & its impact.
·Afghanistan & Iraq conflicts.
·Working in a village for 3 years, meeting locals. Travelling to work along a ridge.
·‘The Actual & Imagined’ Storytelling Symposium at the Ancient Technology Centre.
·‘Voices of the Past’ performance by Fire Springs in Bath Literature Festival 2003.
·Listening to a storyteller recite the tale of ‘Dru the Wind Smith’ in Eastbourne.
·Visiting the Long Man of Wilmington, White Horse of Uffington & Cerne Abbas.
·Talking to Geoffrey Breeze, dowser & antiques dealer. Trying it out at ShamCastle!
·Meeting an eccentric ‘shaman’ with 2 staves at Stanton Drew stone circle.
·Day-long walk along the Wansdyke, and 4 day walk along the Ridgeway.
·Visit to Faringdon Folly.
·Visit to Clevedon Memorial Pier.
·Writing ‘The Ghost Tree’ – a historical fantasy.
·Being a tour guide for ‘Ghost Walks of Bath’.
·‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ exhibition at the ImperialWarMuseum.
·‘Modern Times’ exhibition at the Museum of Costume, Bath.
·‘Steam’: the GWR museum in Swindon, especially Isambard Kingdom Brunel exhib.
·Documentary on IsambardKingdom Brunel: ‘Seven Wonders of Industrial World’.
·Visit to Avebury & AlexanderKeillerMuseum.
·Visit to Devizes Museum & Caen Hill Locks.
·Commuting by train between Bath & Cardiff, via Severn Tunnel, across borders.
LIFE HISTORY OF THE LONG WOMAN
I had the idea for ‘The Long Woman’ in October 2002 after a conversation with author Moyra Caldecott, when she advised me to ‘write the novel you want to read.’ Soon after, I wrote the ‘Hollow Hill’ chapter after a visit to Glastonbury Tor. This piece was workshopped, and I received individual feedback from Lindsay Clarke. He recommended dramatising the whole situation more, avoid Maude being by herself all the time, and to give it more pacing.
For several months the idea worked upon my subconscious as other writing projects forced me to postpone the writing of it until May – I then turned my attention to it in earnest, making copious notes and reading avidly.
I had always intended to work on the book over the summer: when I could visit the locations I had in mind and write about them first-hand. In June, after a weekend on the Isle of Purbeck, I drafted ‘Handfast Point’ and had it critiqued in a tutorial. There were many suggestions. ‘What is the narrative present?’ being one of them – too many flashbacks kill the tension. As the novel now had become my ‘present’, I found by immersing myself in the story situations and characters came alive. Events unfolded dramatically in chronological fashion as I tracked Maude through her life-changing year.
A third ‘taster’ chapter was submitted for a tutorial in early August – by this time I was ‘locked into’ the story, living and breathing it. ‘The Dead of Winter’ was received with some encouragement, and only minor recommendations were suggested, but its prologue, ‘The Angel of No Man’s Land’, needed embellishing & dramatising far more.
The primary research phase finished the end of August, by which time I had drafted up 16 chapters. These I revised for submission as my MA portfolio over the next fortnight – working on average a chapter a day, from 9am to sometimes 11pm at night. During this period my partner was proof-reading, being sympathetic, and offering feedback from a female perspective.
My approach to writing this novel differed greatly from the way I tackled ‘The Sun Miners’ – a young adult fantasy, which I write at the beginning of the year. With that book, I used Christopher Vogler’s ‘Hero’s Journey’ as a blueprint – partly as a way of seeing mythic structure put into practise.
This time I threw the guide-book out of the window, trusting in the process – it was more organic, more of an emotional character-led journey. I had the general idea, but I let it find its own form, rather than impose structure on it. I ‘tore up the itinerary’ and
hoped that serendipity would serve me well. That is not to say I did not craft the novel with great effort. In fact, I found it more of a struggle – perhaps because of the lack of continuity I found it difficult to achieve any momentum for the first disrupted months. It wasn’t until I could dedicate myself to it completely that it began to develop vitality and flowed more. Yet every word was won with blood, as though I was writing a 60,000 word poem. Unlike my genre novel, which was a breeze (and joy) to write, ‘The Long Woman’ is a serious attempt at writing literary fiction – not out of pretension, but because I want to write as well as I can to do the material justice.
After I had drafted a dozen, or so, chapters, I began to see a pattern emerge – the classic 3 acts. Referring to books on structure, as a kind of literary MOT, I began to ‘knock it into shape’, making sure I hadn’t left out anything vital in the classic plot or character arcs. I emphasise these check-lists were done in hindsight, after the natural progression of the tale, yet what I found was generally re-assuring – I was mostly on the right track. I don’t like being too ‘by the book’. Novels cannot be written ‘by numbers’. Yet what I had penned thus far seemed to fit the theory pretty well:
Act One revolves around Maude’s stasis being jolted by her encounter with first the shell-shocked man, then the ghost on the Tor. Her discovery of the journals prompts her on a journey to honour her husband, and to lay his ghost to rest (although she is unaware of this at first). The Quest is established. In Act Two we follow Maude from her ordinary world into ‘the wilderness’, where she meets enemies and allies (though sometimes distinctions blur). She is tested to the limits of her endurance, until she has a breakdown and reaches the end of the line – only by confronting the situation head on can she deal with it. In Act Three Maude plunges into the heart of the mystery – of which she is the key. She is pulled in two directions by her suitors, symbolising life and death, but ultimately she has to find her own way in a climax that leads to her independence, and a return of meaning to her existence.
This is the basic structure, but as I continue to write the book I am working with Maureen Murdock’s less linear ‘Heroine’s Journey’ as a model, and fine-tuning it accordingly – but only in accordance to the wishes of my characters.
I am a great believer in underlying the narrative with a mythic structure. Apart from inducing a mythopoeiac quality, as Tolkien called it, I think it enhances the emotional impact and satisfaction of a story – by tapping into universal themes and qualities. The Egyptian myth of ‘Isis and Osiris’ provides the central mythic structure of ‘The Long Woman’. Maude journeys through memory, and associations of place, in search of ‘pieces’ of her lost husband – when in fact they are pieces of her own soul. Isambard becomes a kind of ‘Lord of the Dead’, the Wind Smith. Anubis, in the guise of Nubi the lurcher, is the guide of the dead and Maude’s totemic guide through the Underworld, the ‘belly of the whale’ she must go through to find meaning in her life once more.
Techniques
For me, names of books, chapters and characters often come first:
I try to give the names I use ambiguity and mileage. Apart from the obvious connotations of the ‘long’ in the title for tall, long-shanks, etc., the other I wanted to imply was longing. I use the Welsh concept for this, Hiraeth, as a kind of incantation throughout the book. The main characters’ surname, ‘Kerne’, has resonances of yearning, as well as referring to ‘kerning’ (the space between the characters), and implies emptiness. Its other connotation, according to the OED, is a ‘light-armed Irish footsoldier’ – which I did not know when I chose it, but suggested to me the ancestor of Isambard, as well as ‘light-footed’, or walking the shining road.
The title was inspired by the possibly prehistoric chalk giant of the Long Man of Wilmington, found on the Sussex Downs. His presence looms large in the book, metaphorically and in terms of narrative. Yet, I chose not to entitle the book directly after him – partly because of the desire for originality, or at least a fresh take on traditional material, but also because the main character of the book is a woman – and I wanted to acknowledge that, and flag it up for the potential reader. The idea of a long woman came about because I discovered references to a ‘mate’ for firstly the priapic Cerne Abbas chalk giant, then also for the Long Man himself. Local folklore relates how an ‘Eve’ figure was once said to grace the Downs, providing a partner to her ‘Adam’. On a human level, I saw it as a reminder of the need for love. No man is an island – he may have his pursuits, but without the intimacy, affection, support, playfulness, and challenging of a partner (of either gender) life becomes arid. ‘You will cry, but not all of your tears, and laugh, but not all of your laughter,’ as Khalil Gibran says. This is very much the learning curve Isambard is on – to learn to love, to not be so selfish, to share and to trust. Maude’s journey is about reconnecting with her feelings, healing, self-definition and empowerment – I epitomise this by transposing the phallic quality (long) onto the woman. It is my metaphor for the Suffragette struggle at the time – women gaining the right to vote, ‘to stand up and be counted.’ This is not about women needing to become like men to succeed in the world, but about the fructifying energy of the chymical wedding: when the feminine and masculine is wedded within us and balance is achieved. This is the ultimate message of the book. Put in sexually metaphoric terms, Maude needs to ‘stick her neck out’, and Isambard needs to ‘open up’.
I wanted to structure ‘The Long Woman’ around a journey across Wessex. Each chapter was to be based upon a walk, to a lesser or greater extent. Some I wanted to be direct accounts of walks taken by my characters and myself. In a reading list for her ‘Observational Poetics’ seminar Caroline Bergvall recommended Rebecca Sohlnit’s ‘Wanderlust: a history of walking’. I could relate to Sohlnit’s idea of ‘writing as walking’. Each chapter became a ‘walk’ with my pen, starting inside my heart and head, and ending on the page. But I ensured it always related to an actual place. I wanted my writing to live and breathe, to have a sense of reality about it, with air and light, scents and textures. When I went walking I tried to see things from both Isambard’s and Maude’s points of view – the believer and the sceptic - writing notes ‘on the hoof’ in Isambard’s style, then as fiction in third person, with Maude in mind.
In respect to journal writing, Lindsay Clarke’s seminar was especially inspiring and useful. It helped me limber up for my own journal while walking, which served as the basis for Isambard’s journal – which was also inspired by the antiquarian Reverend Skinner’s infamous diary, ‘Journal of a Somerset Rector’, charting his disillusionment, alienation and descent into madness. Other journal keepers who inspired me were Peter A. Please, who uses his for character sketches, vignettes and travel writing, and Dorothy Wordsworth – for a woman’s vivid account of walking.
With regard to point of view, instead of the obvious first person, currently in vogue, I chose the more traditional third person: God’s Eye, the ‘invisible observer’, suggesting a ghost, or even an absence of God - emulating Maude’s loss of faith, and the ‘Death of God’ in the wake of the First World War.
Initially, I devised Maude as a counterpoint to Isambard. I could not simply sound off my ideas with Isambard as my mouth-piece alter-ego – even though I found it most comfortable writing from Isambard’s point of view. I needed to present it from a sceptic’s perspective – the questioning everyman, or woman. Thus Maude was born.
But she began to take over the story : she seemed to epitomise the Twenties. She is a normal woman having to endure extra-ordinary events – the Great War, the Suffragette Movement and the Roaring Twenties.
I have added a quote at the beginning of each chapter to set the tone. It is something I enjoy in my favourite books. These were also included to suggest what Maude, as an English Literature teacher, might be reading at that time. I have tried to keep to contemporary or historical sources, with only one or two anomalies.
The ‘3 C’s’ of Complexity, Consistency and Change, introduced to me in Jade Huynh’s fiction workshop, helped me to devise the characters in a more rounded way, i.e. Archibald is not just the villain of the piece - he is offering Maude the chance of actual love, company and support. Portraying him as a lonely and somewhat foolish bachelor, a cad who wants to redeem himself, I intended him to invoke the reader’s sympathy as well as distaste.
The two main characters I am surprised to find based partly upon my parents:
My father has worked on the railways most of his life, and because of his hard work I received my first taste of freedom – with free rail travel. This obviously is reflected in the book through Isambard’s career and the perks of his job.
My mother is the ‘long woman’ in a way. Seeing my mother crippled by agoraphobia and depression – mourning for a lost brother, mother and husband. Yes, I know what it’s like when someone’s life grinds to a halt. I wanted to explore this underworld journey and dark night of the soul – by bring my characters and readers out the other side with life-affirming conclusions.
Leone Ross’ ‘Writing across Race and Gender’ workshop gave me a lot of useful advice concerning writing about the opposite sex. I used some of Leone’s character creation techniques, then followed her exercise, and ‘took them to a party’ – ‘Shooting Stars at Garsington.’ In the workshop it was agreed research was fundamental.Although I did not interview anyone, I based my portrayal of Maude, her sister and best friend upon a lifetime of living with, loving, and learning from women. And I asked my partner to read each chapter and give me her advice. A London agent I spoke to, who deals mainly in women’s fiction, liked the idea and wants to see a proposal. When I have finished the complete manuscript I will farm out copies to several people whose opinion I value, and consider their feedback in my final draft.
In a short autobiographical piece for Jade Huynh’s ‘From Trauma to Memoir’ I con-fronted my encounter with death at an early age. This experience probably influenced more than I realised – and certainly informed the writing of this exploration of death and its impact.
As I have already mentioned the module ‘Borders & Crossings: Active boundaries’ exposed me to David Jones’ ‘In Parenthesis’ and his notion of ‘the space between’ (which I explore fully in my ‘Fire in the Head’ project). For me, this ‘space between’ is symbolised perfectly by the chalk giant called ‘The Long Man of Wilmington’ who stands between two poles – or holds open a doorway to the unknown. Visiting the area I heard a local storyteller recount the tale of the ‘Dru the Wind Smith’, explaining the folk origin of the chalk giant. This chance revelation provided the leit-motif of the whole novel.
Throughout, different connotations of ‘wind’ are used; from the quality of air, to actual wind, its sound, to speech, song, and spirit. Wind-smith led me to wind-lass, wind-harps, winding holes, wind tunnels, blowing-stones and hollowness.
For Maude the ‘space between’ is not only alluding to her sexual organs, but the emptiness in her life; husbandless, childless, suffering depression, a dearth of meaning. God has died, leaving her on Matthew Arnold’s ‘naked shingles of the world’.
I was interested with the aftermath of the First World War – what of the people who have to cope with the waste, pick up the pieces, and carry on living? So many men died – all their deaths were a tragedy, but I can relate to the War Poets especially. Those sensitive, cultured men who had to deal with such suffering, such insanity, made me think of how I would cope – or not. All those wasted lives, a lost generation: How many great writers, artists, inventors, explorers, fathers, brothers and sons died in the so-called Great War? How many potential Tolkien’s, Owen’s, Brookes? Robert Graves reported death also inspired me – how he came back from the oblivion, when so many didn’t. Isambard’s fate mirrors this incredible‘resurrection’. His death and rebirth is the classic shamanic initiation. He becomes the wind smith who can walk between the worlds.
I consider the period of the Twenties to be an apt mirror for the early Twenty First Century – albeit ‘through a glass, darkly.’ A Post-War Britain & America hurtling towards a new Depression and possible future conflict. The hundred years distance creates the necessary twist to give the mundane and familiar a fresh appeal: the topical is alluded to by the historical.
So, indirectly, ‘The Long Woman’ is a metaphor for the post 9/11 world – a world in shock, a nation in grief, individuals in mourning. Indeed, the icon of the Long Man with his two staves could almost be a symbol for the TwinTowers – for those who tragically died that day they became a way between the worlds, a space between.
Isambard offers us the hope that death is not the end – but a new journey. His purpose in the story is to help Maude find meaning again. She has to let him go and move on.
This is summarised so beautifully in the anonymous ballad ‘The Unquiet Grave’.
And the Anthony Minghella film ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’ with Alan Rickman & Juliet Stevenson illustrated this in a modern idiom perfectly. And for me it is epitomised in the line from Elizabeth Barret Browning’s ‘A Musical Instrument’ ; ‘the sun on the hill forgot to die’, which I intend to use as the title of my final chapter. Isambard lives on – in the afterlife, trapped in limbo by Maude’s inability to grieve or release him, then freed to roam the ‘summerlands’. The ‘walking dead’ Maude is resurrected also – finding a new meaning to life. And her own path.
I wanted my book to have a reality about it – as it ‘really could have happened’. This quality has most enthralled me in some of my favourite fiction – I want it to be true. I have been advised by a tutor: when dealing with the fantastical make it as believable as possible. Because I was touching upon the supernatural I endeavoured to give my book ‘verisimilitude.’ This is a technique that master ghost story writer MR James employed to great effect, as well as the art of understatement and the avuncular - as though we are sitting by a fireside listening to the narrator take us into their confidence and ‘suspend our disbelief’, by using that familiar device of the storyteller: ‘it happened to me, or someone I know of – only the other day....’ I tried to make ‘The Long Woman’ convincing by setting it in vividly-realised historical period (ideally), using actual people from the period in supporting roles, interacting with my fictitious characters, setting each chapter in an actual location I am familiar with, writing about what I myself have experienced (i.e. the Ridgeway walk), and using real episodes from life and transposing them in an indirect way.
The overall technique we are concerned with here is the fictionalisation of experience – drawing out the pith of life and redeeming it from extinction, e.g. the little incidents you can’t make up – accidents, coincidences, phrases, images – the minutiae of life. Time and time again I found this happening as I wrote – sometimes consciously, about a visit to a particular location, but quite often subconsciously. A snippet of conversation, a gesture, a vivid image, a unforgettable memory – they slip into the narrative almost unbidden, as though falling into place, as if that was what that moment was meant for. Not that I live to turn my life into fiction – but I find it helps me to value what I do actually experience even more.
Outcomes
I have completed 17 chapters – approximately two-thirds of the novel, totalling 60,000 words with this essay. I will embark upon ‘Act 3’ over the winter.
From when I thought of it in late 2002, to summer 2003, the novel has evolved into its own organism, with its own needs and self-regulating systems. It is no longer something I can impose upon – it has developed a life of its own, not in an autonomous way of course, but it has its internal logic. Any amendments I do now have to be done with great care – for they effect everything else.
If the novelist starts as the ‘blind watchmaker’, creating their world intuitively, by the end of the process they have regained their sight: nothing can be done by chance any more. The sub-creator has to take responsibility for his actions. Tiny details at the beginning of the novel can gain great significance by the end. All the ingredients need to be there. Any ‘plot-holes’ soon become apparent as you struggle to pull all the threads together again. However, this new history is one thing that can benefit from your hindsight – as you can go back to rewrite it, and smooth out any continuity errors. This is what I have done in the final stages of revision – and will probably continue to do so until the book is finished. Each ‘future’ affects the past – new chapters have to be balance out by earlier ones. The music of the piece as a whole has to be considered. Only with critical distance can this be fully appreciated. One becomes ‘tone-deaf’ after months of effort, or word-blind as I put it.
I certainly feel that now, after 60,000 words. When I have finished the last ‘act’ I shall put it aside for a couple of months – giving it to others to read and cast judgement upon. Then I shall revise the final draft in ‘cold blood’, as John Cowper Powys calls it.
This critical final stage is the fine-tunings of an orchestra about to perform its symphony: premiered every time the book is read.
I received some early feedback from my partner, as proof-reader, a ‘lay’ reader who reads a healthy amount of modern fiction, and as a woman. I found it useful to sound her out about minor changes, like names, or new ideas - I took note of her suggestions and incorporated them into the book.
Due to the span of time over which the book was written, and the way it is based upon separate experiences (walks/locations) I think it has a tendency to be episodic. I was worried about doing the linking sections – whether I would be able to breathe life into these less exciting ‘mundane’ scenes. Of course, you need these for contrast, texture and context – it cannot all be ‘away with the fairies’. Maude had to have a job, a home, family, friends, etc. Not forgetting financial, emotional and physical needs! She is a ‘human being’ and her life extends ‘beyond the page.’ The danger of writing about the highlights first – which I have a tendency of doing – is that it is difficult to kindle enthusiasm for the ‘bits inbetween’. Yet the book is partly an exploration of those negative spaces in life, about emptiness, and most of all about the long-term after effects of loss. It begins with a bang, with the First World war, but the rest of the book deals with the aftermath; ‘the long withdrawing roar’.
The book has gone to plan so far, although there have been times when I have despaired – feeling unable to write anything of sense or value. It flowed the best when I was describing a recent experience and wrote it down while it was still fresh. Sometimes I couldn’t get it down quick enough. Yet what I found most exciting was when the unexpected happened: when I was writing ‘The Blacksmith’s Shadow’ I was completely swept along, like Maude, by the events. Her pursuer appeared on the page like the Jungian Shadow archetype. I intended Maude to have a nasty experience at Wayland’s Smithy – another ‘haunting’, but I wanted it to be a red herring. Readers may be expecting the ghost from the Tor to manifest again (Maude certainly is – or a rapist) when in fact it turns out to be his brother. The biggest surprise was Archibald – he began to muscle in on the action uninvited, as he does in Maude’s life. Larger than life, he provides a healthy alternative to Isambard – offering Maude the chance of a normal relationship. But of course he is overstepping the line – he is not respecting the memory of her husband. He should not be trying to seduce his brother’s widow. But there they both are – left on life’s shelf, middle-aged and dysfunctional; an odd couple, chalk and cheese, but two halves that could become a whole. Should we make the most of what we have, or always look for something better? As you age, do your options narrow, or can you always ‘re-write the script?’ These were some of the ideas I wanted to explore.
I was indirectly inspired by Paulo Coelho’s ‘The Pilgrimage’, recording his fictionalised journey along the ancient road to Santiago de Compostela – although I never thought of the similarity until now. However, I did want to write a book you could use as a kind of guide-book, on a physical outer journey, and an internal spiritual one, ideally preparation for the ultimate journey – of dying. If it is not quite an ‘English Book of the Dead’, it at least my reflection on the ‘English way of death’, describing the stages that must be passed through in a psychopompic manner – a kind of route map for the soul. This was a way of acknowledging my own mortality and thinking through what I believe and would do (if I had a choice). On a more mundane level writing the book was a way of getting used to the idea of growing old. In it I have been writing mainly about characters older than me, ten years in Isambard’s case, and about my grandparents and great grandparents generation.I found the Eastbourne scenes the most challenging initially – I felt a little out of my depth in rendering domestic social situations, mainly because they do not interest me as much. Yet as I got stuck in I found the characters dictated the situation and each scene came alive – offering vital contrasts for Maude’s increasingly anti-social behaviour. I had to show her in context. What pressures she was under – how she acted with other people, primarily the important people in her life. She couldn’t exist in a vacuum, or spend the whole novel reminiscing, or being miserable.
The darkness of the opening scenes, in which Maude has all but given up on life, provide chiaroscuro for the later, lighter scenes – the claustrophobia of family, friends and Maude’s grief enhancing the sense of relief and release as she ‘walks out’. The stasis transforms into flux, as Maude’s stagnant life becomes enervated by a series of catalysts and challenges to her status quo.
By trusting the process of the journey – Maude’s and my own, I have enjoyed the sense of discovery more, as new characters, new scenes and deeper resonances have emerged.
Although I have a clear idea of the ‘grand arc’, the precise details of the plot have only resolved as I gone through each scene ‘at ground level’ – walking through it with my characters. Each word has been a step on a long journey – by paying attention to every footprint I have made slow but steady progress. Or to liken it to mountain climbing – each word is a foothold or grip. You have to ensure each one is solid to make progress. You ascend through the logic of narrative causality. Without that internal consistency, the book becomes a house of cards. With each sweep of revision I have endeavoured to remove any faults in the superstructure – plot holes, continuity errors, anachronisms, typos – that weaken the overall effect. Undoubtedly, blind spots emerge. I will have to put aside my finished draft for a couple of months, until a critical distance is re-established. In the meantime I shall welcome as much feedback as possible from friends, fellow writers, general readers, agents, and hopefully editors. With their advice, I shall write a second draft – ‘with the doors open’ as Stephen King suggests.
The more I look into each chapter, the more I find. Each time I go through, the scenes resolve ever more sharply into focus, and what is redundant becomes increasingly evident. I begin by ‘blocking out, then by ‘hacking back.’ In the last couple of weeks I went through each chapter with a fine tooth-comb, tidied up, and put in order. This revision process I found more forgiving than I expected. With the material in place, it was easier to pull it together and shape it up, than the initial effort of getting it onto the page. The blank page is always more intimidating than a rough draft, I find. Like a long walk, or any new endeavour, you don’t know whether you’ll be able complete it, whether you’ll be ‘up to the job’ - but having done so, it’s always easier another time.
The summary and critical commentary I found useful in helping me to clarify and define my (previously subconscious or nebulous) intentions, reflect on the process, and review the project as a whole.
CONCLUSION
I feel ‘The Long Woman’ encapsulates what I have learned as I writer upon the MA, and many of the things I have encountered or been exposed to along the way. My writing has been taken to another level, thanks to the workshops, feedback and advice of tutors, and the culture of critical thinking, creativity and excellence I imbibed on the course. It has been a challenging and exciting journey to take, with many unexpected detours and revelations, as one would expect on a real adventure. The novel has evolved with me, and is continuing to grow. It shall occupy me throughout the winter months.