So, JD Salinger – he of Catcher in the Rye fame – has died without repenting of his decision to become a recluse. For 45 years he’s hidden from reporters and photographers, and since 1965 he’s refused to publish any more of his work. Rumours are now circulating that he’s left a raft of books behind. Time will tell.
But who can blame him? Imagine the pressure after you’ve created a masterpiece. How can another book possible live up to expectation – the author’s, never mind the public’s. A lot to be said for quitting while you’re ahead, leaving people thinking you’re unassailable. As in, keep your mouth shut; if you open it people will know how little you know.
But his reclusiveness strikes a chord with me. Especially this week. Writing is a solitary occupation. And letting your own creativity out into the cruel world is daunting. There’s a measure of safety hiding yourself and your work away from outside scrutiny. Why am I feeling this especially this week? I’ve been preparing to go to Manchester on Monday to give a talk about the place of fiction in the future of bioethics and I confess, I’m finding the prospect daunting. Why? Hard to say. After all, it’s all about what I do every day.
First, I guess it’s because, who knows where the goalposts are with fiction? I never had these anxieties talking about my research when I was a university researcher trotting round the globe.
Second, with the creative arts, doing it and talking about it are two different things. A touch of the those-who-can-do, those-who-can’t-teach syndrome, maybe? Or is it to do with how we communicate? It’s been said that writers write because they can’t fully convey what they want to any other way. Including verbally. We spend hours agonising over the minutiae of the written word, but you can never be sure what you say will come out exactly as you intended it. And just how you say something matters hugely – especially to an audience of bioethicists and philosophers. Help!!
Whatever the explanation I’m in sympathy with JD Salinger today.
Maybe the snow that’s started again this week will effectively close all transport to England on Monday …
Tags: bioethics, Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
What a week since I last posted a blog! The news has been a positive playground for medical ethicists!!
IVF clinics reported to be destroying embryos with minor conditions; a ‘genetic breakthrough’ which could help treatments for breast cancer to be tailored to individual need; a mother who forced her son to fake illness being sent to prison; a manager of a home accused of giving elderly residents overdoses of drugs; a powerful torch being trialled in the detection of malignant tumours; patients who travel to Switzerland to die in Zurich’s suicide clinic potentially facing a £30,000 death tax; the novelist, Martin Amis, recommending ‘euthanasia booths’ on street corners where elderly people could end their lives with ‘a Martini and a medal’; a girl of 5 who suffered brain damage during labour being awarded £1.25m by an Essex Trust … enough! enough!
Not surprisingly given my overt interest in the topic (Crucial Decisions at the End of Life and Right to Die) I want to home in on the matter of assisted death. Yes, again! Because it’s been a big week for this topic. Lots of column inches; lots of airtime devoted to it.
In 2007 Tom Inglis fell out of an ambulance in which he was being treated following a pub fight. He sustained brain damage and was paralysed. This week (my blogging week ie) his mother, Frances Inglis, was jailed for life for killing him with an overdose of heroin – on the second attempt. She really really intended to kill him this time, no doubt about that. She posed as his aunt to get admittance to his nursing home, she was armed with a syringe and £200 of heroin, she wedged an oxygen cylinder and a wheelchair against the door and poured strong glue into the lock to delay anyone entering for as long as she could. But, ‘you cannot take the law into your own hands and you cannot take away life however compelling you think the reason,’ said the judge, before telling her she must stay in prison for at least nine years. Outside the court Tom’s brother praised her courage and love. He asked, how could it be legal to withhold food and drink to allow a patient to die slowly, but not legal to end suffering in a quick and calm way. But a crucial point here is that Tom wasn’t requesting death himself. And at least one doctor predicted that he would eventually recover many of his faculties.
Kay Gilderdale’s daughter, Lynn, did request that she could end her ‘miserable excuse for life.’ She’d had ME for 17 years, she was in excruciating pain, and she’d had a premature menopause at the age of 20. Kay provided her with the means to do so. The 31-year old injected herself with the heroin, her mother topped it up with more of the same plus sleeping pills and antidepressants and injections of air into her bloodstream. She too really really intended her daughter to die. But this week she has been acquitted of the charge of attempted murder. Nevertheless she will have to live for the rest of her life with the memories and knowledge of what she has done.
On the same day that Frances Inglis was sentenced to nine years in prison, three senior judges were deciding that an Asian businessman, Munir Hussain, should walk out of prison, his sentence for grievous bodily harm (after beating a burglar with a cricket bat) replaced with a suspended sentence. Justice, compassion, mercy, upholding the law … all the reasons are trotted out for the differing penalties.
But what would you instinctively do if you found a menacing burglar threatening your family? What would you do if your daughter/son was lying in torment, physical and/or mental and begging for your help? Or if you were on the jury deciding the fate of a mother who has deliberately killed her child?
So-called ‘mercy killing’ raises powerful emotions. Campaigners are re-doubling their cries for a change in the law. The current attempts to do so hinge around cases where people are wanting to end their own lives because of terminal illness or intolerable suffering. Similar arguments; important circumstantial differences. But the potential consequences of such a change are sobering too. Doctors under pressure to speculate as to the time left to give credence to the ‘terminal illness’ (the Lockerbie bomber case springs to mind), disabled lives categorised as inferior and worthy of terminating, patients under pressure to end their lives before they become a burden or inconvenience, a slippery slope to euthanasia of the unwilling … You’ll have read the lists too.
Many people face the dilemma of deciding between two tragic choices, not just the few who hit the headlines. Some of them contacted Any Questions? and Any Answers? this week each with their own painful story. I’ve heard many more. I’ve been personally involved in such cases. Some families go ahead and break the law, some think it would be right to but can’t bring themselves to perform the act, and others believe life is sacred and not to be cut short by human hand. And opinion is fierce on both sides.
Independent MSP, Margo MacDonald, found the same thing when she listened to people caught up in these difficult questions, and her appreciation of the fine nuances is reflected in her proposed End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill published this week. It’s hedged about with safeguards:
- a minimum age of 16
- at least 18 months registration with a GP in Scotland
- late stage terminal illness or a degenerative condition or permanent incapacity
- intolerable life
- agreement by two medical practitioners
- a psychiatric assessment of capacity to decide
- 2 witness signatures
- a cooling off period of two days.
She’s a persuasive campaigner and her own situation (she has Parkinson’s disease) gives her a strong platform. But no-one knows how her parliamentary colleagues will react (this is not a vote-winning cause) and without their support it can’t even get through to the next stage. But if it does become law then Scotland could become the first part of the UK to legalise assisted suicide, so it’s a critical issue.
MSPs are expected to vote on this Bill in the autumn – a free vote so they can go with their conscience and not along party lines. Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, is due to issue new guidelines on assisted suicide within the next eight weeks.
Which way would YOU want them all to go?
Tags: assisted suicide, attempted murder, Crucial Decisions at the Beginning of Life, End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill, Frances Inglis, Kay Gilderdale, Keir Starmer, Margo MacDonald, Munir Hussain, Right to Die
There’s nothing like a major disaster for putting things into perspective, is there?
Events in Haiti this past week have shown a tragedy on a scale beyond imagining. And they totally eclipse some of my current concerns – final editing of my forthcoming book; safety on the icy roads; wallpapering our staircase. When thousands of people are without homes or loved ones, water or medicines, why would anyone worry about a displaced comma or the style of an acronym? When whole communities lie in ruins, who cares if wallpaper is spirit-level straight? When people lie crushed beneath collapsed buildings, broken wrists and ankles seem like small fry. Yes, Haiti has had a profound impact.
It was the same with the Boxing Day tsunami, the collapse of the twin towers, the Lockerbie disaster, the Dunblane massacre … Overwhelming reactions. A compulsion to do something. Yes, we pledge money; prayers have a new earnestness; a few dedicated people may actually go to the danger zone to give their all; we set ourselves new priorities. But then … we move on, we return to our complacent lives, dwell on our own concerns, pursue our own trivial ambitions and dreams. Our species just can’t live their lives at such a peak of intensity. So I want to reflect before the spotlight fades.
Haiti has flicked the switch, but other things have happened during this past few days which have helped to focus the glare, and reminded me of important truths.
- A friend died suddenly and unexpectedly – how important it is to say all the things we want to say now, before it’s too late.
- The official apology to the victims of the Thalidomide tragedy came 50 years after the event – a sincere ‘Sorry’ means a lot.
- The new TV Book Club aired its first episode on More4 – anticipation is often more fun than realisation.
- A 59-year old woman is set to become the oldest to be offered fertility treatment in the UK – just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
- A former nurse is on trial for assisting her daughter to die – these cases highlight the horror when every choice is a tragic choice; the victims need our sympathy not our judgement.
I’ve just made the very last correction to the final draft of Remember, Remember. The last vestiges of the snow are melting. And the staircase is finished. But the devastation of Haiti will reverberate for years. I hope its impact on me will last too.
Tags: assisted death, Dunblane massacre, Haiti earthquake, Indian ocean tsunami, Lockerbie disaster, Remember, Thalidomide, TV bookclub, Twin towers
I’m a writer in search of an idiosyncrasy. The range of mannerisms and quirks people adopt is truly amazing – see I Thought I Was Crazy! Quirks, Idiosyncrasies and Meshugaas. And yes, somebody really did do a research project on the subject. Imagine getting paid to ask people about their bizarre habits and behaviours. Brilliant!
But I’m hankering after a more literary idiosyncrasy myself.
Philip Henscher – he of The Northern Clemency fame (a door-stopping 700+ pages long) – reckons he’s written all his books in longhand using a green Pentel pen and A4 Black’n’Red notebooks. I cannot begin to imagine the sheer hand-strain and number of trees involved there. Or the consequences of innumerable changes required by fastidious editors.
Will Self says he’s returned to a manual typewriter on the grounds that ‘the computer user does their thinking on the screen, and the non-computer user is compelled to do a lot of thinking in the head.’ Hmm. But what about corrections, and cutting and pasting, and sending copies to editors?
Jane Austen kept a creaking door un-oiled so that she had warning of any impending interruption. Now I like the sound of that …
But I’m looking for something unique. Of course, I could just resort to totally unimpressive and un-noteworthy truths like being compelled to finish any book I start reading. Or having to tidy my environment before I can function creatively. Or needing silence to write … Hmmmm. How sad is that? And if there are any psychologists out there reading this, don’t bother; I already know I’m a crazy mixed-up loon. I didn’t dare study psychiatry during my training because I’m too close to the limit myself.
No, all I’m trying to do is find something stylish for my epitaph. Perched precariously on a couple of planks miles above a stairwell hanging wallpaper tends to foster thoughts of imminent demise.
Maybe something like: She routinely ate pickled onions before meeting her publisher; or She stored her own books spine to the wall lest she be tempted to read them; or …
I’ll need to think. On the other hand, perhaps I do actually do something off the wall, but it’s so normal for me I can’t identify it as a peccadillo. Now there’s a thought to conjure with! So those of you who know me personally, all insights gratefully received.
Apropos of nothing really, I came across a quote recently that I jotted down because it reflects something of my own raison d’être as a novelist:
‘I see myself as someone who drops tiny crumbs of nourishment, in the form of comment and conversation, into the black enormous maw of the world’s discontent.’ (Fay Weldon)
Cool, huh?
Hope you’re all weathering this severe winter intact.
Tags: And I thought I was Crazy!, Fay Weldon, Philip Henscher, The Northern Clemency, Will Self
Well, what an amazing beginning to the year 2010!
Temperatures up here have sunk to minus thirteen – minus sixteen a bit further north. It’s snowed every day except one for three weeks now. We’ve slipped and slithered to a few events – the ones that weren’t cancelled – but the roads have been deadly.
But it’s stunningly beautiful. I keep reaching for the camera …
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… with due care, of course. Don’t want to fall and break that expensive lens … or both my arms … and end up totally helpless … like someone in the advanced stages of dementia … like my character, Doris Mannering, in Remember Remember … Fanciful? Yes. But then aren’t all creative writers? Imagining yourself into a person or place is what it’s all about.
And I’ve been doing a lot of imagining this week. It’s the big edit. ‘Be severe,’ said my editor. And ‘kill the baby’ (which in common parlance means, erase the bits you love best). I’ve been severe all right! Twenty-eight thousand words have been cut. That’s more words than many a dissertation. And every one of those twenty-eight thousand words has been thought up, written down, read several times and now deleted. For ever. Weird way of filling your time, huh? But fortunately for me I’m sufficiently distant from the original draft for it not to be too painful. There’s something to be said for publishers’ delays after all!
I finished this mammoth stint at 10.30 last night and sent it off to my editor. But then, in the night … you know about my subconscious mind … I had an idea … As the saying on my old computer had it: Perfection is always one more draft away. And because we’re never satisfied, we go on … and write another novel … and another … always hoping … this time …
Tags: 2010, editing, perfection, Remember Remember, severe winter
Phew! The last day of 2009 – time for a reflection or two.
One of the things that has touched me greatly this year has been the messages sent by readers. I acknowledged each one individually, but I want to thank you more publicly too.
Writing’s an essentially lonely occupation, and every time a new novel comes out, I get the heebie-jeebies. Is it any good? Will anyone buy it? Will anyone like it? March is fast approaching and I’m going through the same qualms with Remember Remember. Editing fiercely; hoping.
Just knowing real people have read my books, engaged with the characters, and formed an opinion is heartening; the personal touch so much more meaningful than sales figures. I particularly like to hear that people have lent them to friends – a much stronger affirmation than knowing X people have bought (but not necessarily read) them … although, if my publisher’s reading this – I am promoting sales, honestly!
To my shame I’ve been remiss myself in giving feedback to authors. However, there’s no mileage in regret, so I decided before 2009 ends to compile a list of ten books that come instantly to mind (without consulting my bookshelves); books that I’ve loved and recommended/lent to other people. My little tribute to some giants among writers, whom I should have contacted and didn’t. (I’ve deliberately left out the classics to make the choice more personal.)
In no particular order
Past Caring Robert Goddard
Sacred and Profane Marcelle Bernstein
Fingersmith Sarah Waters
We Need to Talk about Kevin Lionel Shriver
The Jigsaw Man Paul Britton
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime Mark Haddon
The Third Twin Ken Follett
Still Alice Lisa Genova
Take No Farewell Robert Goddard
Rebecca’s Tale Sally Beauman
I salute all these authors. And add to my New Year resolutions:
Be more active in acknowledging literary brilliance in future.
My very best wishes to you all for 2010 – whether or not you’ve contacted me! And happy reading!
Tags: Fingersmith, New Year resolutions, Past Caring, Rebecca’s Tale, Sacred and Profane, Still Alice, Take no Farewell, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, The Jigsaw Man, The Third Twin, We Need to Talk about Kevin
Have you noticed? My blog has a brand new name: VelvetEthics. I’m rather pleased with it, I must confess. Big thanks to my website designer for her skill and for patient tweaking.
So, it’s Christmas Eve. I’ve been immersed in the editing of Remember Remember this week – a brain-splitting session with my courageous editor on Monday drove me back into it. But today it’s time to down tools and take a few days’ break.
I’ve been having a ball creating a Magical Forest. Each year I write a story for my grandchildren and they act it out; DJ takes photographs throughout, and in January we present them each with an illustrated book of the story.
This year preparation involves making magical trees – the chocolate tree is destined to become a favourite, I suspect. And there’s a stone which mysteriously lights up when the children (actually forest pixies – well, I come from Cornwall) touch it when they’re energised by magic from the chocolate tree. A sort of mini-Geiger-counter. The photos show the staircase in the process of being converted into a forest. If you thought you had problems with needles shed by one tree …!
Once 27th is over I’ll be back to rooting out inelegant juxtapositions of metaphors, scanning for homophones, and pruning adverbs, but for now a very Happy Christmas to you all, and thanks for visiting my blog.
Tags: Christmas, Remember Remember, VelvetEthics
Are you crammed full with festive feelings? Singing as you drape the tinsel?
Or are you struggling to remember where you put the list of freezer-foods you absolutely must buy before Aunt Maud descends in five-and-a-quarter hours time? Or going crazy with wee Tommy’s repeated demands to know how many times he’s got to clean his teeth before Santa fills his stocking with sugary treats? Or worried sick about just where teenage Sally, wearing not much more than 6 inches of skirt and a sprig of mistletoe, has got to at 2.30am? Or running late again because Billy has just wet himself all over your new suedette skirt just as you stopped to answer the phone on your way to the car on the way to collect Pippy from school en route to swimming lessons which will end two minutes after you should have left to go to the station to collect Granny and Uncle Herbert?
Spare a thought this Christmas for those whose daily lives are punctuated by such anxieties 24 hours a day, 365 days a year … with no hope of anybody growing out of anything.
I refer of course, to families coping with dementia. (Nothing new there then, I hear you mutter.) But it’s all down to the BBC this time. With Remember Remember due out in a couple of months time, I really couldn’t ignore two programmes going inside dementia care homes with business impresario, Sir Gerry Robinson – although I have huge problems with the whole matter of filming people who are unable to properly consent; but don’t get me started on that topic! Anyway, the second programme in the mini-series aired on Tuesday of this week. I was too disturbed by the first one to even mention it in my last blog. (A blessing to count there then.) I needed time to think about the issues it raised, calmly.
As some of you know, I have a close association with a number of homes for the elderly, which include those with dementia. I’ve been involved in a voluntary capacity for many years, and I’m privileged to be allowed alongside, and into the lives of, people for whom the boundaries of time and place are now sometimes very hazy.
A fundamental given, in our organisation, is that they are treated with respect and dignity; every effort being made to know the person they were before, in order to maximise the potential of the present and the future. So Gerry Robinson’s experiences shook me to the core. Managers with no training in dementia care whatever, running these homes? Bell-pulls tied up out of the reach of the residents? Staff asleep on duty? Owners more bothered by staff nicking a slice of white bread than a distressed woman crying out for help for thirty minutes? Residents being washed in cold water … or not at all? Carers knowing absolutely nothing about the lives of those in their care? … and all this when they knew they were being filmed!
If I hadn’t sat there and watched it happening, I’d find it hard to credit. I can only devoutly hope that, as a result of this shocking exposé, things will change. They have to. Because one of the measures of a civilised society is the way in which it treats its most vulnerable citizens. How can we simply stand by, knowing this happens?
I was sent an email this week which resonated for me with the sobering reflections generated by the BBC 2 programmes:
A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year-old grandson. The old man’s hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered. The family ate together at the table. But the elderly grandfather’s shaky hands and
failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor.
When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on the tablecloth.
The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess.
‘We must do something about father,’ said the son.
’I've had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor.’
So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner. There, Grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner.
Since Grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl.
When the family glanced in Grandfather’s direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye as he sat alone.
Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food.
The four-year-old watched it all in silence.
One evening before dinner, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor.
He asked the child sweetly, ‘What are you making?’ Just as sweetly, the boy responded,
’Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and Mummy to eat your food in when I grow up.’
The four-year-old smiled and went back to work.
The words so struck the parents that they were speechless. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done …
The tale went on, but suffice to say, the moral of the story is familiar. As the Golden Rule has it: Do to others what you’d want for yourself. I guess we all need to take the lesson of the wooden bowl to ourselves. I know I do. Repeatedly. One day we too may have trembling hands and a deficient memory.
Tags: BBC2, Dementia care, Golden Rule, Remember Remember, Sir Gerry Robinson
If I were to compose a list of my most frequently asked questions, close to the top would come: Are you a full-time writer? Hmmm. No short answer to that. But ‘part-time’ can sound amateurish; ‘occasional’ smacks of no serious intent; ‘full-time’ is a big claim. So what am I?
I don’t have any other paid employment, it’s true, but then, neither do I spend all day every day writing. I am sometimes to be found working on a novel at 3am … 4am … and in no time it’s 5am. But equally I may be taking an elderly friend out for coffee at 10.30am, or assembling a gateau for guests at 4pm.
It’s hard to define ‘work’ in my line of business. There was no interview for the post, no job-description. It might not always be obvious to a casual observer that I am working even when I seriously am. My mind can be mulling over a plot, or conjuring up characters, or creating dialogue, whilst my body is cruising between islands off the coast of Norway, or winkling dessicated grapes out from under the freezer, or digging holes to Australia on the Fife sands with gorgeous grandchildren, or, as this week, wrapping a minor mountain of Christmas presents. Sometimes I may be working when, to an outsider, I appear to staring into space … or even sleeping; when indeed even scientists studying insomnia would swear I was sleeping. Problems unravel and plots thicken when the subconscious is left to resolve tricky situations. I habitually wake ridiculously early (4am today) and find my mind so busy that I have to keep jotting down the ideas that flood my brain before they are lost for ever.
So, what does constitutes work for an author? It’s certainly more than simply typing words.
• There’s reading – an essential occupation. All kinds of – books (fact and fiction), literary journals, newspapers, research articles, official reports.
• Writing itself: not just the novels themselves, but newspaper columns, articles for journals, replies to readers’ emails and comments
• Oh, and this jolly little weekly blog
• Trawling through other people’s blogs to check how it should be done – is that counted as part of my job?
• Reviewing other people’s books
• Keeping in contact with colleagues – more effort for hermits whose office is home
• Engaging with the big outside world: meetings, conferences, book signings
• Visiting my publisher, editor, agent
• Filing medical-ethical news items
• Going for treatment from an osteopath to remedy the problems of too much sitting hunched over a computer writing
• Filling in my self-employed tax return …
I won’t bore you with the exhaustive list, but you get the general idea. They all feel like legitimate parts of my professional life whatever they look like to a dispassionate observer. Only, the beauty of my flexible job is that I can do all these things at any hour of the normal working day, and still write my novels at any hour of the night.
So the answer is, I don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t get paid a regular salary no matter how many hours I work. Not yet at any rate! Maybe therein lies the clue.
Now all I need is a placard to hold up when someone asks if I work full-time: VISIT MY BLOG OF 10 DECEMBER 2009.
Tags: writing as occupation
Thursday: blog-day. I try to listen to Question Time on Thursdays too so if I haven’t posted my blog by then, the sight of David Dimbleby prompts me.
But this week I’ll be far away visiting my disabled mother, so I’m leaving a message for DJ to post on my behalf. If you’re reading this, he’s negotiated his way successfully and pressed the right buttons. He hasn’t done it before so I’m leaving it fully prepared in draft form before I go. No, don’t get me wrong, he’s perfectly capable, I’m sure – I just don’t want him spending hours juggling hyperlinks and searching the net for other blogs or sites. Not when he should be doing safer things like perching on a plank balanced between two stepladders painting a twenty-foot high ceiling and oiling a stained glass window. Both clamouring for attention if we’re to be half-way sane for Christmas.
Me? OK, I’ve hung the odd slice of wallpaper but mostly I’ve been meeting before-the-end-of-the-year deadlines. Writing an article (for a specialist journal) synthesising that stack of novels including dementia I’ve been warbling on about. Editing chapters and project proposals. Exploring different avenues for promoting understanding of the big ethical questions thrown up by modern medicine. Making new contacts, opening exciting doors for next year … watch this space. Anything’s better than decorating!
Oh, and reading an amazing book my son recommended: Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell. Strap-line: Repainting the Christian faith. It’s challenging. Not the kind of thing you gallop through. Beautifully written but big ideas that demand reflection. Odd really: it resonates with a lot of my thinking about how to understand the Bible and how to re-energise spiritual batteries, but I didn’t formulate my ideas until I saw them expressed so well. I’ve been boring on about it to DJ when he’s driving. Makes a change from speculating about my proximity to dementia, I guess.
I should be back in person next Thursday, trains, floods and God permitting.
Tags: Dementia, Question time, Remember Remember, Velvet Elvis