A Birthday, Writing, Gardening

Yesterday was my twin son's birthday. I enjoyed lunch at The Loving Hut, in Edgeware, a vegan Chinese restaurant that serves delicious food.
 This morning,  I got up at 5.45 a.m. I read through and edited a printed chapter of my mediaeval novel set in the reign of Edward II. Next, I lugged the hosepipe out to the front garden and turned on the hosepipe. Then I loaded the washing machine and turned it on. Back at the laptop, I completed the character profile for the hero in Tuesday's Child. I now have a clear vision of his appearance, background, character, what makes him tick etc.

After I turned off the tap and lugged the hosepipe to the back garden I hung out the clothes and then made a healthy breakfast - porridge with strawberries, black grapes and blueberries with almond milk and organic honey.
At ten o'clock, after another session on the laptop when I worked on the character profile of the heroine in Tuesday's Child, I turned off the laptop and worked in the garden. I swept the greenhouse floor, planted out French Beans and did much more.
 

Medieval Novel. Revision With Style.

While I revise my medieval novel set in England during the reign of Edward II I get rid of repeated words and phrases.

I also rephrase sentences which contain gerunds that I tend to over use. For example:-

I changed "...trying to smooth away his pain" to "in an attempt to smooth away his pain."

Another examples follow.

I replaced "Yvonne broke her fast in the great hall before going..." with "Yvonne broke her fast in the great hall before she went..."

After I tweak the next 100 pages I shalll read the novel from beginning to end to check I for the last time.

I hope that the rewrite will be stylish after so much hard work.

Novelist's Shorthand Notepad

I am applying all the notes crammed into a shorthand notepad. Websites to visit, on line groups to consider joining, titles of books I want to read, web.sites with interesting information, blogs I want to follow, notes for research, e-mail addresses, etc. etc.


Last time I did this I decided to do this once a week but while writing Monday's Child I allowed the list of things to do to increase.


I've joined some new groups and am looking forward to participating in them.

Raised Bed

Cold wind and even snow was forecast, unless I misunderstood and it did not apply to S. E. England. Anyway, I expected bad weather so, on Monday, I did the week's shopping and on Tuesday tidied the house instead of getting on in the garden. Today, I sowed sowed seeds in an 8ft by 4ft raised bed. Row 1 cut and come again lettuce  leaves. Row 2 mixed  parsnip and radish seeds. The radishes will mark where the parsnips are and crop when the parsnips have sprouted. Row 3. Quick growing baby carrots. Row 4. Turnips. Row 5. Choggia, a red and white striped beetroot. There is room for a 6th row in which I will plant more cut and come again baby.

Exodus - Gods and Kings

Exodus, Gods and Kings, starring Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Ramses in the battle for the freedom of the Israelites. I particularly admired how much emotion Joel Edgerton managed to convey with his eyes. Yesterday afternoon I took my 13 year-old and nine-year old daughter's sons to see this film. They were familiar with the biblical account and really enjoyed it, particularly the gruesome depiction of the plagues. However they thought the slaughter of the Israelite babies, which Moses escaped, and the subsequent deaths of the first born sons of the Egyptians inexplicable and unjustifiable. I'm not sure whether they were satisfied with my explanations. I enjoyed Exodus - Gods and Kings. I thought the characters are believable, enjoyed the beautiful reconstruction of the Ramses's palace in Memphis and the scenes of the backgrounds, including the desert. I also thought the depictions of the plagues were very well done. However, I didn't like the representation of God, but I won't go into that because I don't want to spoil the film for anyone who plans to see it.

Time Management

Apart from fitting in shopping, cooking, cleaning etc., and spending time with family and friends, it is difficult to balance time spent writing and dealing with business matters pertaining to being an author. I'm almost two thirds through the sequel to Sunday's Child - Monday's Child and have worked out how many words a day I need to write to finish it quickly. The problem is that at this time of the year there's a lot to do in the garden. Today, I've found time to sow vegetable seeds, pull up the forget-me-nots which are past their best, and plant some lilies.
Can't help wondering how other authors organise their time.

New Review of Far Beyond Rubies

The following review of Far Beyond Rubies has 'made my day".

5.0 out of 5 stars Far Beyond Rubies is a Gem, March 27, 2014

By 

Nancy Jarrell - See all my reviews

This review is from: Far Beyond Rubies (Kindle Edition)

“Swounds, he thought, I am expected to marry and produce a male heir. An image of Juliana filled his mind. She would grace these ancient walls better than any other lady he knew. But what would she say whenhe revealed his past?”This is but a snippet of the delightful prose found in Far Beyond Rubies by Rosemary Morris. The author perfectly achieves the delicate balance of elegance and spice, humor and pathos, in this tale that takes place in England during the reign of Queen Anne.

The settings and characters are exquisitely detailed and described, from cruel and scheming relatives to determined orphans, and an unusual hero with mysteries of the orient in his silky, spicy past. Throw in some extremely amusing servants and landladies, and one is set for a thoroughly charming reading experience.

 

Rosemary goes beyond the mere surface of the era, rewarding the reader with an enchanting story set against a vivid backdrop of the of the culture, politics, and belief systems of the times, and the issues that developed when East met West: Fascinating. Lovingly and beautifully rendered throughout.

And the book trailer of the novel can be viewed on my website.

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

Tomato Plants

Saturday Lunch

I made a favourite vegetarian meal for Saturday lunch. It's Sweet Potato Balti, a mixture of sweet potatoes, spinach, butter beans and tomatoes spiced asofoetida, curry powder and soup stock. Delicious served with mint and cucumber raita i.e. grated cucumber drained in a tea towel for half an hour, finely chopped mint, salt and a tiny amount of sugar mixed with yoghurt. I made a double quantity of the balti to freeze and then enjoy it on another day.

Spring Bulbs

I round up mismatched china and, in the autumn, put charcoal in the bottom of bowls, cups, flower vases, tureens etc., in the bottom of each one. Next, I add compost and put bulbs on top of it before adding more compost. Last year I planted hyacinths, mini-daffodils, crocuses and dwarf tulips. The first three are flowering, so I've brought them from the greenhouse into the house. Beautiful - and the flowers are cheaper and last longer than cut flowers.

Cooked for my Daughter & Her Family

Helped by my 4 year-old granddaughter, I made a vegetarian pasta sauce for myself, my daughter and her children.. I cut organic carrots, mushrooms, celery, leeks and green peppers into chunks, and then stir-fried the vegetables in olive oil in which I had steeped fresh oregano and basil several months ago. Next, I added two tins of organic chopped tomatoes and seasoned the mixture with salt, pepper and a little sugar. When the vegetables were cooked I tipped everything into the blender. The result? A delicious pasta sauce - and I made enough to freeze two cartons on another day.

Daughter's Ill Health and my Novel.

I'm not superwoman so I am tired this evening. This morning I woke even earlier than usual and wrote 2,000 words of Monday's Child. Next I revised an earlier chapter before checking my e-mails.

I emptied another carton of kitchen paraphernalia and put it on the shelves in my new kitchen cupboards. By then it was time to take my daughter's older son to his gymnastics lesson. He is on the London South East team and is practising for a competition. Her younger son, who is nine, and I had a quick lunch and then returned his books to the library. He wanted to know about Shakespeare so he was delighted to find an informative book about the bard, his plays and poetry. At the moment he is learning about World War I at school and is a keen football player so he chose some books about these subjects.

After I took him home, I put my feet up for an hour and then cooked the evening meal for my daughter and the three children.

She is really suffering - asthma attacks, dreadful migraines and to make matters worse, as I mentioned yesterday  she has either dislocated her shoulder or the cartilage is swollen and wrapped around something. Deep, deep sigh, the anti-inflammatory medication which she should not have been prescribed have upset her entire system and I fear she is becoming dehydrated because she can't keep anything down.

I'm now tapping away on the laptop having put the four year old to bed and will stay at my daughter's house until it is time for the boys to go to sleep. By then, I'll be glad of my own comfortable bed.

The Scarlet Pimpernel

I have finished re-reading The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. I bought an illustrated copy of the 68th edition published in May, 1938. On the cover are gold embossed insignias of the Mary Datchett Girls' School, Camberwell, featuring a lady wearing a wimple and Cloth Workers London featuring their coat of arms, two winged creatures supporting a shield.

The novel was a prize for needlework given to Joan Eastland in July 1938.

I hope Joan enjoyed reading the book.

I first read The Scarlet Pimpernel years ago and, after watching adaptations of Baroness Orczy's famous tale,  had forgotten how the book ended.

The novel is written from the omniscient author's viewpoint and jumped from one person to another without spoiling my enjoyment although the style is so old-fashioned.

However, when I read the following, which I imagine made Joan's heart beat faster, I wondered how modern readers react to it.

"He (Percy Blakeney, The Scarlet Pimpernel) was  but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love, and as soon as her (his wife's) light footstep had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade there, where her tiny hand rested last."

After I read it, I could not help wondering if any man really would kiss the ground his beloved had stepped on.

Guest Blogger

I am a guest at the following blogspots. If you would like to, please visit them and leave a comment.

http://www.katie1carrol.com/blog and http://wendylaharnar.blogspot.com.au2014/02/yy-its-party-time-book-launch.html

Writer's Group

Yesterday evening, at Watford Writers,  I read an extract from my medieval novel. It's amazing how many flaws I find when I read to an audience. I'm also grateful to members of the groups who pointed out repetitions and suggested I divide one scene into two.

Whenever I listen to other authors read their work I am always impressed by their imaginations and talent. A young lady who attended for the first time read a short story which was modern, unusual and succinct. It was a prose snapshot of a significant factor in the character's lives. A member read from her biography of a lady, who lived in the late 18th and early 19th century, and two other talented members read their poems.

Later there was a quiz. Here are a few of the 20 questions. Who only had a vocabulary of 32,000 words? What did Big Ears and Noddy quarrel about? Which two things do the castaways on Desert Island Discs always take with them? And in which year were television programmes first broadcast?

I went home happy and relaxed and woke this morning keen to get on with the galley of The Captain and The Countess.

Mild January

This morning after I worked on my new novel and checked my e-mails, I weeded another bed in the front garden. It is a mild January day on which the sun is shining and the birds are chirruping. My hanging baskets and window boxes are full of cyclamen and geraniums all in flower. The front garden is like a French potager in which I grow vegetables and flowers. At the moment the broad beans look very healthy and the pot marigolds still have some flowers. Bit by bit I'm getting rid of the weeds.

Better Weather

My grandson, who has been poorly and did not go to school, went for a walk across the green behind my house and on into the woods. We took Oscar  with us. He is a small, delightful 6 month old puppy my grandson and his family are looking after.

The weather is mild, the air crisp but the ground underfoot squelchy after the recent heavy rain. The woods are full of birdsong and we saw squirrels scampering across the ground and in the trees. Oscar enjoyed it and barked for us to throw sticks for him to fetch.

As a historical novelist I imagined our experiences taking place in the past and made notes.

Busy Day

I worked on a new chapter of Monday's Child; tidied the house and made a winter warmer soup with root vegetable, pearl barley, peas, aduki beans, spices and fresh herbs - yummy.

I also checked the peanuts and grains I put out for the birds. It's very worrying, year by year fewer and fewer birds visit my garden. Last winter was severe and so far this winter there has been almost ceaseless rain and fierce winds. Have the harsh conditions killed the  birds? The population sees to be declining.

On Writing Monday's Child.

While giving my house a through tidy-up on Thursday and doing a lot of shopping on Friday thoughts of my work in progress, Monday's Child, the sequel to Sunday's Child, both set in the Regency era were never far away. Mind you, I'm trying to train my mind not to consider the novel while driving. I don't want to have an accident while in the world of my imagination populated by a cast of interesting characters.

Chapter Ten was 'a pig' to write. None of the characters wanted to do as they were told and the historical facts I was trying to slip into their story seemed to annoy them. However, my first draft of Chapter Eleven was comparatively easy to write. The words flowed and the characters behaved.

To my relief the first two one thousand-five hundred words of Chapter Twelve, which I wrote yesterday, was a joy to write.  The heroine defied her temporary guardians but did not defy me me as my fingers almost flew over the keyboard. If only every piece of writing could flow as smoothly.

Festival of Romance

Tomorrow, I shall attend the Festival of Romance in Bedford. For details or to buy last minute tickets visit www.festivalofromance.co.uk.

Everything I plan to take with me is lined up on the beds in the spare room. Later on this morning I shall pack my bags. Hopefully, I have not forgotten anything I shall need.

I'm really looking forward to meeting friends, making new friends and acquaintances and the opportunity to meet members of the public who enjoy reading.