Christmas
Spinning out of control …
Eebie jeebie! Life’s on a steep slope and gathering frightening momentum this week. Where are the brakes …? Anyone seen the safety nets?
Outside, hard frosts have made works of incredible beauty out of ordinary spiders’ webs around here, and I couldn’t help but feel an affinity with them. Unbelievably strong, amazingly intricate, yet so fragile if touched carelessly. A bit like the ideas the brain conjures up in creative mode. So, why is the writing life more than usually frenetic at the moment?
Well, to begin with it’s Book Week Scotland; I’m doing a couple of author events locally for that. Lovely to go out there and meet real live people who read my books, and want to know about why and how I do what I do, and wonderful librarians who are so enthusiastic and dedicated to their task of encouraging reading, but space needs to be found to prepare mentally for each one.
I’m also writing not one, not two, but three books simultaneously right now. Three, do I hear you shriek? Yep, three. Completely unprecedented, as regular followers will know. Madness, probably. So why break my own rules?
Well, Christmas is fast approaching, so I absolutely MUST complete the grandchildren’s annual story/play due to be enacted on 28 December to a full house. I need to order props and make costumes before then, and allow for postal hiatuses, so first I have to finalise the text to be sure about what I still need/want. In spare moments, and by way of light relief, I’m also making monster heads – details are top secret (suffice to say that hair and glitter and strange white particles linger stubbornly in the warp and weft of certain carpets). And one whole room is definitely off limits to all, no exceptions.
Then my ongoing novel, Killing me Gently, mustn’t be allowed to lose momentum. Pleased to say I’m still with the thriller genre on that one. However, as a safety valve, I’m letting the back burner dictate the pace of this book at the moment, only sitting down to actually commit words to the document when they’re too insistent to ignore, or jotting down thoughts that wake me in the night.
And the third book? It’s brand spanking new, jostling for attention at crazy o’clock, keeping me at the desk long past the witching hour. It’s got a working title of Listen and is designed as a shorter story in my usual vein (contemporary fiction set in the world of medical ethics) which can be offered as a free download to give potential new readers a window into my books. I’m having a ball writing this! It’s about a Professor of Medical Ethics who goes on a train journey from Aberdeen to Penzance where a crisis awaits her … I now know some amazing statistics about high speed trains! And about atrocious experiments performed on black people in the 50s in America. Intrigued? Watch this space.
I keep reminding myself … this is all entirely self inflicted!
Peeling back the gilt of Christmas
At this time of year it somehow seems extra tragic when bad things happen to good people. Aside from the global crises afflicting our world and unravelling before our eyes in our living rooms, I personally have a number of friends currently facing serious illness, impending death, sudden bereavement, and yet it must seem like everyone around them is caught up in trivia and pleasure, festivities and excess – in reality of course, who knows how many others are only hiding stresses and problems from public consumption?
It’s in this spirit that my mind has been wandering over the huge dilemmas facing different families; what would I choose in their circumstances? how would I cope?
Metropolitan police officer Heidi Loughlin, 33, discovered she had an aggressive form of breast cancer the day after finding out she was pregnant with her third child. She decided not to have a termination of the pregnancy but to delay treatment until after the birth. Her condition became so serious however that her baby girl was delivered by Caesarean Section on Friday, 12 weeks early, and Heidi has been given a short time to recover from the operation before starting powerful chemotherapy next week. She faces a pretty gruelling Christmas, but is determinedly looking forward to March when she will get her baby girl home to her two brothers. She has risked her life to give her daughter a chance and says she has no regrets; it was all worth it. What would I have chosen in this situation, I wonder? What would you?
Then there’s fireman Patrick Hardison. He entered a burning house in Mississippi; the roof collapsed on him leaving him with severely disfiguring burns across his face, head, neck and upper torso. Think for a moment of the pain of a small burn from an oven shelf, a hot iron … Multiply that by ten trillion. Even after 70 operations he was still so terribly mutilated (see pictures here if you can cope with them) that he would only go out heavily disguised. What kind of Christmases has he endured, I wonder? He recently underwent the most extensive face transplant ever performed. Factor in not only the excruciating pain at every stage but the risks … would I have been courageous enough to want to go on living? Would you?
Within the last two months, two transgender women have been found dead in their cells in all-male prisons: 21 year old Vikki Thompson in November, and 38 year old Joanne Latham in December. No more Christmases for them. Many difficult questions present themselves where transgender people are concerned and there is generally much greater sensitivity to their issues, but what about when they commit crimes, serious offences that land them in prison? Not only their own welfare is at stake but that of their fellow prisoners. Where would you have housed these two? Nearly 150,000 people signed a petition to house a third person, 26 year old Tara Hudson, in a female institution even though she had been convicted of assault. Would you have signed it?
A 50 year old woman, mother of three, is so determined not to grow old and ‘lose her sparkle’ that she has refused to undergo kidney dialysis. Her kidneys were seriously damaged when she took an overdose following a diagnosis of breast cancer. For years her life style has been chaotic to say the least, and one wonders, what is Christmas like in that household? Whatever, the Hospital Trust responsible for her care appealed to the courts to have treatment imposed against her wishes. But a senior judge has upheld her right to an autonomous choice to die. Was he right to do so, do you think?
I’m merely scratching the surface by way of illustration. Remember all the cases we’ve heard about recently – various scandals around abortions carried out on the grounds of gender alone; teenagers killing themselves because they’re obsessed with losing weight; all the dire warnings about how to deal with declining fertility; the consequences of a simple blood test at 18 weeks pregnancy that allows screening for thousands of genetic conditions … the list goes on and on. My files are bulging with clippings and articles.
So at this time of celebration and joy, let’s spare a thought for families caught up in tragic circumstances, and the courageous souls who try to support and guide them. May they find wisdom, courage and strength. And I wish all visitors to this blog peace as you prepare for the festive season whatever it means to you.
Juggling balls
Reviews for my adult novel, Inside of Me, are slowly trickling in, and it is, as ever, extremely gratifying to get such wonderful endorsements from people whose opinions I value: ‘well researched’, ‘full of empathy’, ‘a gripping story, full of unexpected and emotional twists and turns’, ‘absorbing’, ‘complex psychological issues, handled with a light touch’, ‘raises challenging questions without simplifying the issues or offering any easy answers’. Wow! Thanks, folks!
It would be all too easy to get impatient waiting for the rest of these busy reviewers to respond. After all the delays caused by my illness, I just want to get this book out there. But frustration would be a serious waste of energy, so I’ve turned my mind and pen to a totally different kind of writing: the story/play I write for my grandchildren every year for Christmas. (The eldest is now almost sixteen so the level of sophistication rises exponentially year by year; getting closer and closer to adult fiction.) And guess what: it’s been positively therapeutic! A delightfully refreshing change from looking deep into my soul, and worrying about my own body image and identity.
I can’t share anything of the theme or substance of this year’s production with you, lest I bring down the wrath of the entire family on my head – it has to remain a closely guarded secret (ie. known only to me) until the actual day. But what I can say is that it’s currently 16,000+ words long, involves the making/assembling of nineteen different costumes, and the collection of a whole variety of props. And it will require a complete makeover of parts of our house closer to the event. Enough to keep me well out of mischief from now till Christmas. By the way, if anyone has a spare mortar board or a shaggy grey wig and beard do please get in touch!
In between I package gifts and write letters for the most ordinary humdrum aspects of the season. Keeps my feet firmly on the ground. Oh, and of course, watch eagerly for any correspondence from the said critics.
Story telling
Even I am not mad enough to post a blog on Christmas Day! But I can’t resist the temptation to give you a little Christmas present on 24th: a wonderful auditory experience.
The Reith lectures are prestigious radio talks given each year by eminent figures of the day. The 2014 ones were given by a man for whom I already have huge respect: Dr Atul Gawande. He’s a surgeon but also an accomplished writer, and someone who admits he’s in the business of disturbing people’s complacency.
I’ve read and reviewed several of his books so I had high hopes, and his verbal presentations didn’t disappoint; indeed he made them remarkably conversational and free from humbug and jargon. The gift – to me – was that each one hinged around a compelling story, reflecting my conviction that stories capture an audience but can at the same time convey deep truths. I was instantly gripped; I was receptive to his messages. I hope they captivate you too.
In Boston the first talk began with a moving account of Dr Gawande’s son who, aged 11 days, was found to have a serious heart defect – diagnosed thanks to the wisdom and understanding of a paediatrician who noted that his oxygen saturation monitor was attached to the wrong finger, giving a false reading. Dr Gawande talked of his 37 nieces and nephews in rural India for whom such skill would not have been available, and led into the substance of his message, reasons why doctors fail: ignorance, ineptitude and necessary fallibility.
In the second lecture (in London) he gave a graphic account of a little girl who fell through the ice of a pond in Austria and drowned, but, thanks to extraordinary team work and slow but methodical application of science, was brought back to life and a productive future. From this he developed the idea of how systems built upon the knowledge and discoveries of the centuries can allow doctors to deliver incredible care. Discipline, every member of the team doing what they do best, makes daring possible.
Edinburgh was the setting for the third lecture and this time we heard about Dr Gawande’s daughter’s piano teacher. Peg had cancer and it was thanks to the compassion and sensitivity of those around her that she got to live out her last weeks and months doing what she loved best – teaching music; giving her pupils treasures they would never forget. From this moving narrative he unpacked the question of what to do when you can’t fix the unfixable and how important it is to really listen to the patient’s own priorities. Mere length of life isn’t the only goal; it’s how you live that shortened life.
For the last lecture in the series the speaker returned to his family’s roots in New Delhi. It was knowing that the requisite knowledge to save life existed elsewhere in the world but not in India, that drove Atul’s father to study medicine himself. He wanted that knowledge for his people. From here the speaker moved into the cultural differences that make the elderly a revered part of families, and that allow an elderly widow of 82, newly treated for heart failure, to regain her self respect by becoming a cook in her own huge care facility, whereas in the Western world she would be stripped of her value to society. We segued smoothly into the importance of sustaining the reasons a person wishes to stay alive.
Beautifully done. And it’s those graphic stories that will remain with me. I shall hang onto that thought as we move into a new year and I try to pick up the reins of novel writing again after my enforced sabbatical. I wish you all the joys of discovery through reading.
And all blessings of the season whatever it means to you. If you are sad or lonely or troubled, may you share something of the peace it symbolises and the warmth of kindness, and find the courage to hope.
Stocktaking
As one year ends and an unknown year opens up in front of us, it’s a good time to take stock, isn’t it? But it’s all too easy to get things out of perspective.
Now, you (probably) and I (definitely) both know that self doubt and angst are a recognised occupational hazard for writers – well, accumulated humiliations and rejections of various kinds, and multiple petty blows to the ego, don’t exactly put one in the party spirit, do they? So it maybe won’t come as any surprise to you when I confess that I was feeling rather despondent recently about the constant struggle to achieve sales targets and get the latest book noticed.
But then I found Melissa Benn‘s article: Survival of the fittest, in Mslexia. What a tonic. She knows personally all about the agonies of tiny queues for signings, poor reviews, miniscule audiences, patronising jibes, totally negative feedback, being ignored by the marketing department, the demise of the mid-list author, diminishment … her list is pretty exhaustive. Merely seeing these negative experiences acknowledged as commonplace takes some of the sting out of them. And her encouraging tips on how to survive were balm to my soul. As she says: ‘the most significant difference between a writer and a would-be-writer is simple bloody-minded persistence.’ Persistence? Yep, that I can do.
I was also chastened. I haven’t actually suffered any public abuse or vitriol such as some of the authors she quotes have endured (not yet at any rate!) so I’m instantly berating myself for allowing lesser things to bring my spirits low. I have no right or cause to wallow in self pity. Shoulders back, head high, woman!
And then there was an interview with crimewriter, Ian Rankin. He’s in his early 50s, lives in Edinburgh, and has sold over 20 million books. He’s a success. He’s a rich man. Readers queue twice around the block to hear him speak or get his signature. Our paths cross occasionally but he’s in a completely different league from me. He certainly wouldn’t recognise me if we met in the street, I’m sure. However, it took him a good 14 years before ‘money became a happy factor‘ in his writing career. And behind his present fame and fortune lies private tragedy. He says he’d give all the money he has so that his second son, Kit, didn’t have the severe disability he has (Angelman Syndrome).
This little story puts my anxieties about book-related issues into a much healthier context. Do sales figures really matter in the bigger scheme of things? Does anyone suffer because I overlooked a typo? Who benefits if I lose sleep anticipating possible criticism or a vanishing audience? I recall Alison Baverstock saying, think in terms of gaining one reader at a time and appreciate each book sold, rather than feeling crushed by grandiose expectations. By now my mental shake is having an effect.
And then some lovely people booked me for various author appearances. Thank you, guys! Flagging morale significantly boosted. See, it doesn’t take much to reverse the trend.
Besides, it being a new year, I’ve resolved not to try not to get myself ridiculously overloaded with busyness, anyway. As Ruby Wax (who, don’t you know, holds an MA in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy from Oxford and knows a thing or two about mental health) said in an end of December interview for the Telegraph on the secret to a happy new year: ‘happiness is not a shiny 2014 diary already clogged with meetings, phone catch-ups and must-do errands‘: we’re happier when we’re calmer and taking life steadier. That’s a pretty good idea to hang onto as we launch into a new year, I reckon. Me more than most.
So here’s to 2014 … and more peace and giving and understanding and loving in the world. I hope it’s a terrific year for you: healthy, happy, productive and contented.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
All blessings of the season to you all! Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing stay safe and well.
Kurukulla: The Wise Guru
Christmas week! Time methinks for a holiday from all serious debate and difficult issues and deep and meaningful reading. Light relief is called for.
Apparently some of my readers were disappointed not to get some hints as to the Christmas story I was writing for my grandchildren. A deliberate decision on my part because family members (adult) object if I spoil the surprise by giving sneaky previews.
But, after the event, I can now reveal all, and share a glimpse into Christmas Day chez nous. (Apologies for the variable quality of the pictures – still tinkering with settings, but reluctant to spend all of Boxing Day pfaffing with something so tedious, and technical support limited during the holiday period.)
The story centred around four cousins who time-travelled from Scotland in the 21st century, walking backwards up a winding staircase …
back in time to the home of a wise guru, Kurukulla, which in Tibetan means dances the rhythms of wisdom.
The Wise One gradually transforms them into mini disciples and puts them through a series of initiation ceremonies …
and as they acquire knowledge and wisdom she adds jewels to their faces … 
Magical creatures add surprise elements …
and a banquet wins the hearts of chocoholics…
The end result: four beaming grandchildren.
It only remains for me to rid the soft furnishings of the smell of sandalwood and musk, and wish you all a peaceful and prosperous 2013 – contentment and gratitude in the good times; strength and wisdom if troubles come your way.
Books, lists and preparations
Yesss! I had no less than three good excuses for sitting down for hours with a book In December, when I really should have been busy ticking things off the to-do list glaring at me from my desk. Three cast iron excuses to boot. 1. I’d just had a wisdom tooth extracted, and was under instruction to take things easy for a couple of days. 2. The roads were treacherous with snow and ice making it inadvisable to venture out. 3. The author of the said book is Linda Gillard, and after the year she’s had, I was keen to review her book before Christmas. Which reminds me … 4. The book’s set at Christmas time so the mood was exactly right for reading it in December.
House of Silence is Linda’s fourth novel, and although it once again features mental illness and dysfunctional families, it’s otherwise very different from the three earlier ones I’ve read. Good start. As you know, I’m somewhat allergic to formulaic writing.
Gwen Rowland is a wardrobe assistant for film and television productions. She’s good at it too. But she’s alone in the world.
Aunt Sam did booze, Sasha did drugs, and my Uncle Frank did men – boys if he could get them. This unholy trinity went down like ninepins in the ’90s, martyrs to over-indulgence. All three died tragically young of, respectfully, cirrhosis of the liver, a drugs overdose and AIDS … My mother, fond as she was of cliches, would have said, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” And Sasha did.
Since the death of her mother, Gwen has dreaded Christmas with its appalling memories, and essential loneliness. So she finds it hard to understand why actor-boyfriend Alfie Donovan is reluctant to take her to Norfolk for his family celebrations. He has no choice but to go; it’s his duty to visit his mother and sisters. But why isn’t he appreciative of the richness of his own privilege – not just relatives, but a stately Elizabethan-manor-house home, and celebrity? Why isn’t he keen to share it?
Eventually Gwen wangles an invitation, though Alfie predicts it’ll be her ‘second-worst Christmas‘ ever. She warms instantly to the practical but eccentric sister Viv, and the scatty but creative Hattie, who still live at Creake Hall, but she grows increasingly disturbed by the changes in Alfie. Where is the family affection? What has made Rachel Holbrook, renowned children’s author, and their mother, hide in her room, granting only occasional audiences to visitors? Who is the mysterious gardener, Marek Zbydniewski, who sees right into Gwen’s soul? And what exactly is Hattie trying to tell her?
The cold and cavernous house is full of photographs and portraits, but they aren’t what they purport to be either. The sisters offer explanations for some of the discrepancies, but Gwen is growing increasingly mistrustful of everything about this family. Things just don’t add up. Who are they? And what secrets are they concealing? As she works on one of Hattie’s unfinished patchwork quilts, Gwen unravels more confusion and mystery that take her into a labyrinth of such complexity that the reader has to keep readjusting his or her own compass.
We’ve come to expect richness and depth in her characters from this author, who combines a light touch with thorough attention to detail. This time the layers of authenticity come from psychology, quilting, gardening, writing, acting, music. And although the underlying tale takes us into dark places of the mind, there’s plenty of light and shade, with eccentricities and humour providing the contrast and lifting the spirits.
So, the verdict? I enjoyed the book greatly. No difficulty sitting tight for a day and a half. Although, to be ultra-pernickety, I confess I’d personally have preferred a less tidied-up ending, and far fewer exclamation marks …! Sorry, Linda, but your prose is strong enough not to need them.
OK, review posted, now I can get back to that to-do list.
Decorate the house …
Wrap parcels …
Bake cakes … mull wine … Relax! I’m not going to bore you with humdrum domesticity. No, only wish you all peace and happiness whatever the season means to you.
Forgotten Voices
In the welter of Christmas Fayres and concerts, charity fundraisers, shopping, wrapping, writing, cooking, I’m very conscious of the many folk out there for whom this whole season is a nightmare – the bereaved, the lonely, the sick, the burdened. A frightening number of my own friends and relations fall into the special-card-category this year. No mention of ‘merry’, or ‘happy’, or ‘festive’. Perhaps a wish for peace. Or blank for my own message.
Thinking such sombre thoughts brings me to a book I read a while ago that gave me cause for some deep reflection.
In a former life I was Deputy Director of Research in the Institute of Medical Ethics, and for many years I studied the issues around the treatment of tiny and sick infants born at the very edges of viability. Mortality and morbidity statistics for this group of children are high, and sometimes difficult questions have to be asked about whether it’s wise and morally right to offer, or to continue, treatment. 
My research involved listening to the firsthand experiences and opinions of 109 bereaved parents in these kind of circumstances.
What a privilege. Interviews lasted anything up to five and a quarter hours at a sitting – sometimes well into the night – and I subsequently went over and over the recorded interviews in order to analyse and report their stories faithfully.
Now, you can’t immerse yourself in profound human misery of this calibre for many years without being affected in some way, and the effect of this accumulated heartbreak has remained with me ever since. It has changed my tolerance levels, it has altered my perspective on life in many ways.
So I was predisposed to respect the writing of Lyn Smith who spent 25 years recording the experiences of Holocaust survivors for the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive. Her burden is immeasurably heavier than mine. But like me she has chosen to share these stories so that others might know and understand better. She’s used interviews with over 100 contributors to assemble a powerful oral history of the atrocities perpetuated by the Nazi regime in Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust.
The book is carefully structured, covering the changes before the war when persecution began, the creation of the ghettos, the inhumane treatment of the concentration and death camps, the resistance movement, death marches, liberation, and the trauma of the aftermath. It begins rather mildly and somehow the evil creeps up on you, devastating in the power of first person accounts, even though the essential stories are well known. And I was totally unprepared for the horrors that continued after repatriation.
As Laurence Rees says in his foreword, ‘This book will trouble you deeply.’ It will. I’m not going to attempt to give you a flavour of it. You need to hear the voices of Kitty, Joseph, Rena, Roman, Alicia, Maria, Charles, and their fellow-sufferers for yourself. And you need to build up to the unbelievable treatment they endured simply because they were Jews or gypsies or Poles, or Jehovah’s Witnesses or homosexuals or some other so-called ‘subhuman’ species deemed unworthy of life.
This is not a book for the faint-heated – no surprises there. Tales of persecution, torture, murder, rape, make discomforting reading, and these personal but stark, unembellished accounts describe a depth of depravity grotesque beyond words. And yet these people survived, against the odds. What’s more they found the courage to relive the horror, the words to capture the pictures and emotions, the spirit to go on. And sometimes even to forgive.
Nor is it unmitigated darkness and despair. Despite the brutality and degradation, the fear and nightmares, the stories are lightened by flashes of humour, by memories of astonishing and inexplicable acts of kindness, by glimpses of dignity and compassion, by a remarkable lack of vengeance, by amazing demonstrations of courage.
Lyn Smith expresses the hope that ‘Gathered together … this mosaic of voices gives access to the complexity and human reality behind the abstract statistics of extermination and allows readers to see beyond the stereotypes of what constitutes a “victim”.’ I believe it does.
The Manchurian Candidate
Well, that’s the Ethics Film Festival over for another year. And I’ve survived! No rotten tomatoes or heckling or booing. Phew!
The format is the same for each session: the film is shown, and then a panel of professionals from different disciplines (bioethics, law, philosophy, politics, sociology) comment on it before engaging the audience in discussion about the issues. I had my moment on the high stool at the front on Sunday afternoon (talking about The Manchurian Candidate). The quality of the challenges that come from the floor always impresses me – sometimes I struggle to even understand the question, never mind answer it. But maybe the label ‘ethics’ attracts an erudite and informed thinker in the first place.
Anyway this year I actually found it quite stimulating analysing one film in detail and thinking about its messages. When the film 
The Manchurian Candidate was first shown in the early 1960s the world was a different place. It tells the story of an American army sergeant (played by Laurence Harvey) who is decorated for his bravery in the Korean war. But his superior officer Major Marco (Frank Sinatra) suspects there’s something phoney about the account of an ambush and bravery under attack, and sets about uncovering the bizarre truth. It features a power-crazed mother, a puppet presidential candidate, warring senators, hypnotic card games, a couple of delectable girls, and an escalating plot to gain a foothold in the White House.
That early version caught the mood of the time – doubts about America’s involvement in Korea and deep suspicion about communist infiltration. And yet the film is still challenging today fifty years later, making it such a good choice for the Neuroethics Film Festival. How brainwashed are we? How much do we exercise freewill, or is our future pre-determined by our biological brains? How much moral responsibility should we take for our own actions and opinions?
I must confess I was devoutly grateful that I wasn’t allocated the final flim, A Clockwork Orange. Horribly violent and disturbing. But, or course, an effective and powerful stimulant to vigorous debate on the issues of correction and deterrent, punishment and rehabilitation, competition for resources, moral responsibility, religious conviction and political agendas. Which was the whole point.
Appearing at our local library a couple of days later was tame and safe by comparison. I am after all an acknowledged expert on the subject of my own novels … I hope! I know why I wrote what I wrote. And I’m prepared to defend my choices to the death!
So, that’s the end of my professional away-dates for this year. Things start up again after New Year but for now I can settle back into working in the warmth and security of my study. And in between sneak in a little preparation for Christmas. Yes!!
Speaking of Christmas …
This was a small part of the thousands of plants on display during the annual poinsettia walk at the Pentland Garden Centre this week. Fabulous, eh? The prime specimen on our kitchen windowsill at this very moment is lifting my spirits already.