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Is Coincidence a Literary Sin?

/ Tracey Gemmell / 4 Comments

I’ve been promising to publish my third novel, working title ‘Life Like Lavender’, for a couple of years now. My transatlantic relocation and that small matter of a global pandemic got in the way of my timetable. (Hopefully I can use those excuses for a while longer.) The positive side of the delay is my creative juices have enjoyed a nice rest and I’m excited to get back to editing the manuscript. My travel fiction seems relevant once again after lockdown had me wondering if any tale about jumping on trains, planes, and automobiles would henceforth be categorized as sci-fi. Thankfully not, it seems.

Back to the manuscript. I’ve received a developmental edit on ‘Life Like Lavender’. Set in London and Provence, I succeeded in making my editor crave a life as a lavender farmer, if not the domestic drama that accompanies that move. Score one for me. The brilliance of, and problem with, editors is that along with the praise and wonderful suggestions for even better plot lines comes the ‘you-have-got-to-fix-this-bit-or-everything-falls-apart’ admonishment. Ugh. And you thought you were so close to publishing. Once again, the manuscript goes back in the drawer so that all those ideas and admonishments can percolate and mature. Like wine, or cheese, or a good garden design, stories need to put down roots and get comfy before springing fully to life. Most of the changes I need to make will improve the flow and credibility of the tale. However, there is one event in the list of things to rewrite that I’ve been struggling to get my head around. It involves coincidence.

Let me set the stage: the protagonist has been in Provence for a few months but returns to England to support her adult children during a crisis. She bumps into her ex-husband in a London park. My editor, and one beta reader, didn’t like this. ‘Coincidence!’, they yelled. ‘You can’t do that.’ It’s not authentic, is the rationale. It’s the author needing to have them both in the park rather than the story leading them both there. But … but, I say, the park is close to where they once lived together and somewhere they had both visited many times over the years. Why wouldn’t they bump into each other there? Does my whole lavender-filled world collapse because of this meeting? This got me thinking. Isn’t life and literature full of coincidences? Why is this meeting by chance in a park an unforgivable literary sin?

I’ve just finished reading Iris Murdoch’s The Sea The Sea. In my humble opinion, this tale doesn’t age well. The protagonist’s preoccupation with a woman he hasn’t seen in forty years, resulting in, by today’s standards, kidnapping, imprisonment, and harassment, leaves the reader wondering how Iris could do this to another woman. But that’s a different blog. My point is, after forty years of not knowing where the young love of his life disappeared to, he just happens to retire to a small seaside village and low and behold, his former love lives there too. He bumps into her in the street. Coincidence. In a more recent novel, limited funds are a factor throughout the entire tale. However, when needed, a whole load of cash drops from heaven somehow, with no mention of where it came from or how the protagonist couldn’t have known it was there. Coincidence. (Or more like a huge deus ex machina.) In my current read, a cosy murder mystery, the protagonist just happens to drive down a track in a forest she’s never been in before and there are the crooks she’s after. A few chapters later, she’s sitting in a coffee shop, miles from her home. In walks the other villain she’s after. I could go on with examples galore, but you get the point.

Maybe my life has been so full of coincidences, I don’t find them shocking. Once, lost somewhere in Virginia a few months after first arriving in the USA, I stopped at a bar to ask directions and pick up lunch. Over the door was a sign that said, ‘Where you will always meet someone you know’. I turned to the Finnish lady who was with me and muttered something like, ‘If that happens, I’ll eat my hat’. As we were waiting for our sandwiches, I heard a British accent behind me at another table. I turned and, low and behold, there was someone who lived in Somerset, my home county. I helped sell her horse several years before. We marvelled at how this could possibly happen in a tiny town in a rural area of Virginia – or anywhere? But it happened. Coincidence. Hubby and I bought each other the same Valentine’s Day cards a few years ago. Coincidence. I bumped into a cousin I hadn’t seen in years on a hike far from her home once. The list goes on and on and I’m sure it does in your lives too. Coincidences happen all the time in life and in the stories I read.

My question is, in your literary travels, what constitutes crossing the line with regards to coincidence? What moves the event from perfectly feasible to so outlandish the reader yells, ‘Yeah, right! Like that would ever happen!’ I feel so many outcomes in life depend on coincidence, I’m reticent to remove the scene. I need the shock of the two characters seeing each other. I need the tension of the, ‘Oh, crap! Not him. Not now. Not here.’ Is it really so fantastical that an ex-husband and wife would choose to go separately to a place they’d been many times before?

Writing is a constant battle between writing the story you see in your head and writing the story others will accept. The goal posts move every time you read a book or try to write or have someone else critique your writing. What do you change and what do you fight to keep?

I’m not sure I can answer the question as to how much coincidence is too much coincidence. Can you? I’d love to hear your real-life and literary coincidence stories. Now, back to my manuscript. Today, that scene stays in. Tomorrow? Who knows?

Image: Pixaby

Finding Myself Online. Or Not.

/ Tracey Gemmell / 2 Comments

Mission: Identify twelve search keywords that would lead others to find you online. Go.

It’s okay, I’ll wait. Am waiting… Okay, two keywords. Can you come up with two?

I know, right? It’s really hard. But that’s what I have to do as part of a website redesign project I’m currently undertaking. If I want to be found online by those who don’t know my name (and there are a few of you), I must condense my online ramblings, posts, writing topics, and areas of specialized interest or expertise into a dozen keywords. These words can’t be too general like ‘traveller’ or ‘expat’ because I’ll never compete with Condé Nast Traveller Magazine or the billion other hits you’ll get under those search terms. They can’t include the vague term ‘writer’ because Poe, Rowling, Hemingway, and King seem to pip me to the post. I can’t be too specific either, like using the word ‘hiraeth’, because although hiraeth – meaning ‘intense longing for home with a sense of loss’- is ingrained in my very soul after so many years of geographical searching, it’s not a word many others know. Or can spell. Searches may be limited, therefore, to the one person on the planet who wakes up and says, ‘Today I’ll search the word “hiraeth” to see if anyone out there has written a novel about it. Oh, and let’s hope said novel also includes Exmoor ponies.’ A bit too niche, don’t you think? Another favourite word of mine is coddiwomple – ‘to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination’. It defines both my own life’s journey and the novels I write. But is it a good keyword? Hands up if you’ve ever searched coddiwomple. Anyone? I thought not.

What to do. What to do. I blog, pay dues for a website, and scroll endlessly through millions of other people’s social media posts, (forgetting to mention my books on my own accounts), but marketing guru, I am not. By the way, if you search ‘marketing guru’, Seth Godin pops up. He’s everywhere. Well done, Seth. Admittedly, I’m not on every social media platform. I stick to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram mainly because I’m not expected to dance on those. Or at least I don’t think I am. And I’m not expected to use a filter that turns my face into a rabbit or gives me horns or transforms my voice into that of a robot on helium. I mean, who the heck would look for me, humorous fiction writer of a ‘certain age’, on TikTok and what would I be doing there if they did? Jamming to Uptown Funk while making my morning porridge or filming myself typing ‘The End’ on my latest novel in slow motion while my dog plays the accordion in the background? I have a feeling that last bit just shows I have no idea what TikTok does or even is. Which would be true. I bet Seth’s on TikTok. But I digress…

I should have a better handle by now on Who I Am. Professionally that is. I’ve given up trying to answer that question on a personal level, much to my family’s relief. So let’s get back to who’s looking for me online. And why. (Between you and me, I’m a bit afraid to ask, because what if the only one looking for me is that guy serving two years for pirating copies of independent novels? Or that kid I rolled down a steep hill on a dustbin lid when I was eight? Oh, come on! He wasn’t even hurt and Mum made me apologize and that’s all in the past and can we just move on now, please? This approach works in politics. Until it doesn’t.)

Maybe I’m asking the wrong question. Maybe the question isn’t, ‘Who’s looking for me?’. The question is, ‘Who’s NOT looking for me but will learn to love me if I can only identify the right keywords to get myself on their radar?’. Fear of discovery shouldn’t play a part in this. I love writing and I’m so grateful for the positive feedback I receive from readers. I need to put myself out there more and I’ve found a great professional design team to help with that.

I must march onwards in my search for search terms that improve my searchability in search engines. It’s like my perpetual search for home only without frequent flyer points or jetlag. I vow to spend the rest of the week soul-searching in order to produce my twelve terms that depict my core essence. This task will provide the perfect excuse for not getting back to editing my current work-in-progress. Procrastinator! That could be one of my search terms! I just know I’ll come up as number one in that. I’ll check it out. Later.

Happy googling to all of you reading this. Delighted you found me.

(PS Tim Urban’s funny TED Talk about procrastination comes up if you search that word. I’m not mentioned. At all. Which is good news. I think.)

Images: Alpha Stock Images

Editing Books and Gardens

/ Tracey Gemmell / Leave a comment

Last week I received The Email. Yes, THAT email. The one from the editor that filled me with both crippling anxiety and spine-tingling excitement. Attached to said email was the edited manuscript for my third novel, entitled Life Like Lavender. Anyone who’s undergone the excruciating and/or joyous journey of birthing a book understands this is the moment the book lets out either an ecstatic scream (‘I’m here world! You may love me now!’) or a pitiful whimper (‘I suspect I may be premature so ready the incubator’). For most of us it’s more a case of ‘I’m here world but a shot of adrenaline in that warm incubator wouldn’t go amiss.’

Yep. The Email was a big deal. I contemplated a week hidden under the comforter, munching cookie dough ice cream in-between slugs of chocolate syrup straight from the bottle before my brain computed the editor mentioned a few scented blossoms amongst the piles of compost. Great, he noticed the blossoms. Good, he noticed the compost that, allowed to mature, may produce better blooms. Darn it, he noticed the raw excrement that no amount of time will fix. It will always stink.

A few days after The Email arrived, I tucked the ice cream pot under my arm for safe keeping, placed the chocolate syrup bottle in the car’s cupholder for easy access and headed off to a Horticultural Society plant fair. I’m passionate about gardening and what better distraction from editing than a warm sunny day surrounded by discussions about variegated leaves and whether a one-metre-tall evergreen myrtle constitutes a mid-front border or mid-back border shrub?

Strolling around the plant stalls I find pots of Snowflake bulbs (Leucojum vernum, if you speak horticultural Latin). £5 for four bulbs. Well, for goodness sake! My garden back on Exmoor is overrun with Snowflakes! I mean huge, beautiful drifts of them, clumping in the vegetable garden, poking through stone walls and setting up encampments under every shrub. I adore them but there are probably more than I need. Eureka! I could give up writing and just sell Snowflake bulbs from my doorstep. All I need to do is decide which clumps stay and which ones go.

On the drive home, the car filled with plants that obviously couldn’t be left behind for risk of finding themselves in the ‘wrong hands’, I contemplated the editing of books and gardens. What to keep, what to dig up, what to work on, what to give up on. But therein lies the rub. One gardener’s invasive weed is another gardener’s ornamental show piece. One reader’s boring paragraph is another reader’s deep reflection. Which do I cut? Which do I cultivate? Whether words or plants, I’m just going to have to keep digging and sowing, pruning and uprooting, until I get the ratio right. Luckily, two wonderfully knowledgeable landscapers and one insightful and generous editor are there to help with shaping decisions.

Jettison the ice cream, Tracey! Dump the chocolate syrup! (Maybe one more mouthful.) Keep all the Snowflakes you love, no matter where they are in the garden. Give away the rest. Keep all the words you love, even if they need a little TLC. Cut the rest. Don’t look back. Plant your garden and tell your story the way you see it.

Editing: a process each writer and gardener must go through to achieve the ideal blend of perfect words or gorgeous blooms. Let’s get started.

Even Exmoor Walls Can’t Keep Crazy at Bay

/ Tracey Gemmell / 4 Comments

My Exmoor home sits in the middle of a secret garden, which in turn is surrounded by an old stone wall, over six feet high. Not exactly Hadrian’s Wall but it still provides a private, sheltered, safe space. Inside these walls, it’s an oasis of calm, protection against a world of chaos, well, except for the chaotic ivy and wild geranium and forget-me-nots which have encroached on the stately roses and formal plantings like mutant variants. They refuse to distinguish between valuable plant specimens and dead tree stumps – COVID-like in many ways – but they give the space character. I love the way they tumble in and out of beds and pathways and tree roots. They feel safe here, as do I. Inside the wall, I can forget the outside world for a bit. I can close the gate and listen to the seagulls cry overhead, or the cockerel from the farm up the road, or the shrill song of a robin as it duets with the resident mourning doves. Even the wind and rain seem less threatening in this sanctuary, the watery clatter on the windows and the whistle of wind through trees complimented by the scent of woodsmoke, all delightful accompaniments to a good book.

But not all can be kept at bay behind an Exmoor wall. Walls don’t keep crazy out, nor all the worry. I worry about the valiant scientists fighting upstream against apathy and ignorance. I wince at yet another tale of a nurse exhausted beyond exhaustion by the unvaccinated. (No! No! Seriously, don’t go there or I’m climbing over my wall to smack you up the side of the head with ‘Get vaccinated or, if you don’t think you need one, stop calling ambulances and taking up hospital beds. Just. Don’t. Okay?) And I lament the lot of the hospitality workers of whom we have expected too much and given too little in this latest round of leaders telling us to ‘stay home but restaurants and hotels can remain technically open so no help from us, okay?’ Crazy, right? There’s only so much ridiculousness a six-foot stone wall can keep out.

Speaking of ridiculous, before writing this December 2021 blog, I looked back at my December 2020 blog. What was I thinking? A year ago I documented my covid-induced journey from brunette to tinsel sparkles like it was a joyride though a Christmas lights display. Now, with the transition complete, I still fight the urge to scream at the grandmother in my bathroom mirror, looking like a slightly less wrinkled version of Einstein, only without the ability to explain one single facet of the universe. I also noted in that blog from a lifetime ago that a vaccine was on the way. No worries for 2021, then. (Spoiler alert: there were a few worries still to come.) The naiveté of that blog astounds me now. As restaurants all around me close down once more due to omicron outbreaks and the travel plans I was so sure would be in full swing by now wilt on the British Airways vine, all is the same and all is totally weird for another New Year’s Eve. 2022 lies in the road like a giant bear and all we can do is poke it with a long stick to see if it is in fact dead already or just fooling us into believing it’s not going to bite. (Is my wall bear proof? Better check.)

Well, that got dark fast, didn’t it. Swimming back towards the light, I have a plan for 2022. It may not include the travel I’d hoped for or the return to more certain times. It will, however, include a) following the science (I used to be a researcher in communication disorders; I can read a scientific report), b) improving my odds of not being the person in hospital by using science and common sense as protective masks, and c) supporting as many local businesses as possible. Oh, and I plan to finish the manuscript that’s due to be with the editor by February. The novel, currently titled Life Like Lavender, involves starting over and jettisoning old baggage and finding sanctuary and cutting through the BS to find truth. There’s travel and new homes and French food and hilarity and sadness and fighting for family and plans tweaked or completely rewritten to accommodate new realities, including shock diagnoses no one saw coming. But there’s no COVID in this tale, which either makes it sci-fi or pure escapism. Your choice. But I need this story. And I need my stone wall. They are my sanctuary. I’m lucky to have both in my life.

The silver hair? Not so much. Maybe I’ll like it better next year. If not, I can always hurl the mirrors over the wall.

2022. It’s coming, ready or not. I wish you sanctuary, whatever that looks like to you.

From Wanderluster to Upcycling Homebody and Dove Whisperer

/ Tracey Gemmell / 2 Comments

And just like that, the end of summer speeds at us like a tourist heading for the last table at an inundated cream tea shop. It’s been a weird old summer, hasn’t it: part supposedly post-pandemic, part not sure, part ‘no, we’re definitely not out of the woods yet’. I’m tilting towards the later so have stayed pretty close to home. A few restaurant visits, a few outdoor cream teas, one short trip to Suffolk, and a lot of hiking in the glorious isolation that is Exmoor (if you know where to go to avoid the visitors). My default setting of wanderlust mixed with a smidgin of hiraeth appears usurped by homebody vibes, which suggests I’m in the right place.

I’ve been home for long enough to have experienced all the seasons now and am enjoying the second go-around; the return of the blackberries along the Exmoor trails and the seep of vivid green to sage to yellow in the fern leaves. The Rowan trees are once more startling in their red jewellery, so bright you can see the berries from a significant distance.

There’s a delightful familiarity to local events, tentative though it all seems: the return of live music and village shows, all cancelled last year, some creeping back this year with all precautions in place – though the number of UK covid cases suggests ‘all precautions’ are proving somewhat inadequate. Delta was just a river mouth this time last year, it’s now the scourge of many a planning committee, from dog show to NHS budget conference. But this year I’m vaccinated, as are my husband, mother, sisters, and children. It’s a relief I couldn’t have imagined last year.

Onwards and upwards. Our move to our new home will happen in October so we’re busy searching for furniture. ‘Wait’, I hear you say. ‘Didn’t you have a container of goods shipped over?’ Why, yes we did. But we sold or donated all our larger furniture pieces before leaving the US. We thought we knew the house we were going to and the rooms weren’t big enough for most of our pieces. We all know how that plan turned out. Now we find ourselves the joyous owners of a home with larger rooms, we wish we’d kept those pieces. (Hindsight is such a pain.) So over the past weeks I’ve been masking up and scurrying through huge furniture warehouses, only to find I don’t connect with much modern furniture. Plan B finds me scrolling through buy and sell sites, looking for older, chunkier sideboards, tables, couches and dressers others have upcycled, or projects I can upcycle myself. Seriously, there are some very talented furniture restorers and decorators out there! And I, thanks to copious YouTube videos, now know how to use wood hardener and wood putty to reshape outdoor chairs full of rot. Just waiting for the topcoat seagrass-coloured paint to arrive and I’ll have four lovely excuses to sit longer outside in our garden.

Speaking of which, if you can’t find me, I’ll be weeding in our new garden. The beauty and tranquillity of that spot, the unexpected, delightful discovery of a new shrub wrestling towards sunlight through layers of ivy or clouds of geranium-gone-rogue, well, it leaves me speechless with gratitude at times. (And in need of a hot soak in Epsom salts at others.) I’m getting to know the locals, namely a pheasant who bolts from the undergrowth with a screech fit to wake the dead when you get too close. My favourite locals to date – apologies to all the human neighbours we’ve meet; you’re okay too just not as entertaining. Yet. – are the pair of mourning doves who ‘own’ the garden and have no problem making that clear. (They could be pigeons but a good definition of the differences is hard to find so I’m going with the more literary name.) Mr and Mrs Bobblenecker follow me around, perch on walls, trees and benches, bobbing their heads, preening and gossiping as I sweat over another bramble root. ‘What’s she doing?’, ‘Is she coming back?’, ‘Why would she cut that back or dig that up or fall over that?’ ‘Do you think she’s planning to stay because that’s where we usually sit in the afternoon?’ On and on they coo-cooooo, coo. I answer when I can, though they just laugh at my accent and poor dove grammar. The only phrase I really need to know in Dove is ‘Please stop dropping buddleia and thistle seeds everywhere.’ We’re set for a discussion about the removal of the birdfeeders if they don’t listen. Coo-coooo, coo that, Bobbleneckers!

And so, the world turns. New friends, old pandemic worries, upcycling projects, bulging garages full of stuff waiting for a permanent home. And me. A writer doing anything and everything but write most of the time, even though my editor is expecting a third novel by February. Another season into my epic journey and I’m just trying to be kind to myself. The stories will flow again, and I’ll be ready when they do. Covered in paint, mud and dove droppings, probably, but I’ll be ready. Hiraeth and wanderlust don’t remain dormant for long.

Aging – One Day at a Time

/ Tracey Gemmell / Leave a comment

Tomorrow I age by a day. Just like any other day. Except tomorrow I also age by a decade, a staggering mental concept that sees all of us on the cusp of a new decade do one of two things:

  1. Tear out our hair at all the opportunities missed and the shortness of time left in which to pack an entire life of ‘Maybe I’ll do that next week/month/year’.
  2. Let a few things go, offering oneself up gracefully to the hard-won wisdom that some things probably aren’t going to happen now.

I must confess to a bit of the first option this past week or so. It is the easy option. Much easier to regret than to implement greater effort over the years. Not that I haven’t worked hard and achieved much. I left home at sixteen, financed my way around the world, married well (VERY well, my husband adds, reading over my shoulder), obtained a Bachelor’s then a Master’s degree while simultaneously raising two children, remained married for thirty-two years (though that streak may end if Hubby continues to harp on over my shoulder about how well I married) and published novels when many struggle to complete a Twitter post. All in all, I’ve done okay.

But I haven’t reached the giddy heights of some, like the Olympic gymnast, the Nobel Prize in Literature winner, the world-renowned expert in nanoplankton, the wine sommelier placing an exalted blessing on a new vineyard. The joy/curse of being born the same day as Princess Diana constantly reminds me some people influenced the world in a far shorter time than I’ve been alive and kicking. Reaching the stars may require getting up earlier, planning ahead, dressing better, putting myself out there more with the essential thick skin that requires. It all sounds so … exhausting.

The second option would seem less strenuous. A simple talking to oneself: ‘That’s never going to happen, Tracey, let it go.’ Less strenuous, yes. Easier? No. Admitting you’ve missed the boat sticks in the craw a bit.

But it’s also struck me that so many of the targets I now realise I’ve missed actually weren’t ambitions until the deadline passed. In all honesty, I feared the asymmetric bars at school (being afraid of heights didn’t help) but I see those twists and turns on television and now wonder … could I have? If I’d had access to that striking sequinned leotard instead of being forced into the awful school-sanctioned baggy gym shorts and sweaty, bottle green polo shirt ensemble, could I have ‘perfect-tenned’ it to glory? I’ve marvelled at Nobel Prize-winning books, never aspiring to write anything even close. And yet, every now and then I write a sentence that seems to me quite brilliant in its revelation of the quintessential human spirit and I wonder; only another hundred thousand of those sentences to go and I could be off to Oslo. I’m not a strong swimmer and get claustrophobic in a dive mask yet perhaps I could snorkel my way to wherever nanoplankton live and discover something that gets named after me. Surely, if wine didn’t now make me so tired I fall asleep after half a glass, I could learn to sniff loudly into a glass of something fruity and pinpoint the location and vintage? It’s not too late. Is it?

I think we all know the answer to that. So what’s still open to me as I pass into another decade on this planet? What’s NOT too late? The answer is, pretty much everything I’m doing now. Writing something funny and entertaining (IMHO), even if not earth-shattering in its brilliance. Checking off a few more bucket list destinations. Volunteering in ways that may change another person’s life – think tutoring a struggling young reader or opening a door for a refugee. Learning more about this marvellous world, even if not to a PhD level. There is ample time for all this. And I’m already doing it. Tomorrow will be no different.

So I choose to age only a day tomorrow. I determine to push forward and let go in equal measure. I decree July 1st, 2021 will be the first birthday of all the rest. Not the last birthday of all the others. I may even have a glass of wine. If I can stay awake.

Images: Pixabay

Does Humorous Travel Fiction Still Matter?

/ Tracey Gemmell / Leave a comment

New Year’s Eve. We all held our breath for Big Ben to strike midnight over the empty streets of London, like waiting for the starter pistol in a race to a free brunch buffet. We waited for the ball to drop high above deserted Time Square, the last ping pong ball in the Powerball lottery drawing when we had all the other numbers. This was it! 2020 was outta here! Woo hoo, 2021! The year of the vaccine, the end of Trump and the beginning of round-the-world cruises for all!

*Throws glitter in the air while blowing party horn.

The bell tolled, the ball dropped (metaphysically, anyway), and yet. And yet…

2021: The sequel no one wanted to write. Or read.

COVID numbers continue to climb, in the case of the UK, despite national lockdowns. Trump saves his best for last, with an assault on the US Capital. The cruise lines cancel spring and summer. New COVID variants emerge and I don’t win the lottery, only in part, I’m sure, because I didn’t buy a ticket. Worst of all, in one last kick in the 2020 teeth, New Year’s Eve sees the passing of my life-long friend, Betty. She was my ticket to America and the inspiration for Mrs Althorp’s character in Dunster’s Calling. A ninety-two-year-long life, well lived and peacefully departed, but still. I spent the last days and hours with her, so grateful I moved back to England in time to enjoy these past several months. It was time for her to leave us. But the void that was 2020 is now permanent, and with loss comes reassessment of what matters.

I’m not the only one reassessing life, wondering what will never be again and what will rise like a phoenix out of the COVID ashes. ‘What’s next?’ is the anthem playing non-stop in my brain. What’s next? When my writing revolves around humour and travel and I’ve lost the thread on why it matters? What’s next? When I’m spending the New Year writing a eulogy instead of editing my latest novel set in Provence? The one I’ve been promising readers for a year now. What’s next when the vaccine is coming but it’s crystal clear it’s not the ‘shot in the arm’ for so many small (and large – RIP Debenhams) businesses fading away during lockdown? When the local pub and the iconic cream tea shop are gasping for air.

We’re all asking, ‘What’s next?’ of our communities, of our leaders, of our countries. But mostly of ourselves. How do we cope, change, adapt, rise anew? And do we have it in us to start 2021 as though our old lives still exist and matter? It all feels so different, even though we are the lucky ones. We’ve made it this far through the worst of times and long may that continue. But are they still relevant? These old lives. The ones we thought would last forever and that we controlled, at least for the most part. I struggle with what once seemed vital and now seems frivolous. Stories. Humorous stories. Travel stories. My work-in-progress could as well be set on an alien planet in the year 2300 as on the train to Provence. The fields of lavender and the medieval town of Les Baux-de-Provence, once so familiar in the pages of my manuscript, may as well be part of a dystopian sci-fi. That’s how out of touch it feels. That’s how much it now doesn’t seem to matter. (Not that dystopian sci-fi doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t fit my work.)

As a writer, making it all matter starts with putting my butt back in the chair after a long break. (In my defence, I did move continents when moving next door would have been a struggle.) I can’t worry about whether readers want lighter fare or heavier. Escapism or real life. All I can do is write what makes me happy and reminds me of past and future adventures. I need that. One word, one chapter, one story arc at a time. It starts with the belief others will want to visit the beautiful locations into which I plunk my characters. It starts with the belief a good laugh is still a good laugh and the search for home in foreign or domestic settings is ongoing for many of us. That universal themes are still that: universal.

Much has changed, yet much has stayed the same. We will always need humour and travel plans and fun and hope. And we have all these things, in books and in our own futures. The bells will ring, the glitter will rain down. All will be well, (even if I don’t win the lottery). Today I vow to write my funny stories of sunny places and the search for home. It still matters. If we all still believe it matters.

Onwards to Provence!

In memoriam: Betty Howett (1928-2020), Fellow of the British Horse Society. Mentor. Friend.

Wrong Time Zone. Right Book Zone.

/ Tracey Gemmell / Leave a comment

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The last decade ended with great excitement. I thought I’d purchased my first house in England, ready to move home after thirty years in the US. This new decade began with great disappointment. The purchase fell through. Hand wringing, lamenting, and yelling ‘A pox on all your houses!’ didn’t seem to accomplish much. A change in tactics now finds me waking at 4:30 a.m. to peruse real estate websites and badger all my Exmoor friends to be on the lookout for suitable properties. Many have stopped answering my calls and it’s only … still January. Anyone would think they feared my return. Fear not, brave allies! I shall return in all hast to force copious amounts of clotted cream on you. In the meantime, I remain in the wrong time zone.

As a distraction from lamenting and house-poxing, I turn to books. Not my own as I’m too distracted. Haven’t written or rewritten or edited a word in a couple of months. Luckily, other authors are filling the void and I’ve read some awesome works, many outside my comfort zone. Out of necessity, I spend a lot of time reading within my genre. I need comparative titles for agents, a current view of the publishing landscape, a familiarity with like authors, what’s working and what’s not. Reading is certainly pleasurable but it’s also work. I used to read everything and there’s no reason to stop just because I’m now a writer in a certain genre, right? In fact, every reason to broaden my horizons. So, 2019 was the year I stepped back outside my humorous fiction cave and blinked in the light of forgotten categories.

I found some of my 2019 reads through PBS’s Now Read This (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/features/now-read-this/), and still others at my new favourite hangout, the reviewer’s copy table at Barnes and Noble: new releases at discounted prices. Some of my reads are brand new releases, others are old classics. I’ve linked to reviews rather than sellers where possible as I know you have your own purchasing preferences. I hope the links work wherever you are. I’d love to hear your recommendations from your own reading adventures. Here goes:

I’ve never been a big fan of autobiographies but Casey Gerald’s There Will Be No Miracles Here and Damian Barr’s Maggie And Me cured me of that.

Spy thrillers became a favourite genre after meeting Tom Clancy at a book signing, then marrying a US Naval Officer. But that was years ago and I’d let the spy work go. Daniel Silva’s The English Girl brough me back with a vengeance. (Though I could never write this. Here’s why.)

Nonfiction has been on the backburner for a while. It moved to the front of the stove with To End A Presidency (Lawrence Tribe and Joshua Matz), Joanna Cannon’s Breaking and Mending, John McFarland’s The Wild Places, and Jane Friedman’s The Business Of Being A Writer. All fascinating and informative.

Everyone should top up their classics reading each year. (Tracey, that means you.) My choices were I know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou, American Gods, Neil Gaiman, and Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier). How could I never have read Rebecca before now! It’s awesome! But most of you knew that already, I suppose.

The flip side of the classics is to take a chance on a debut author. Beneath the Flames by Gregory Lee Renz is a great place to start. I met Greg at the UW-Madison Writers’ Institute and, boy, can this former firefighter tell a story.

War and violence are topics I steer clear of if I can. There’s just too much going on in the world for me to find the awful things we do to each other entertaining. But A Woman Among Warlords, Malalia Joya, and The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Christy Lefteri, are eye-openers. I’ve started 2020 with Olga Grjasnowa’s City Of Jasmine, about the refugee crisis brought about by the war in Syria. Foreign translations haven’t been on my radar for a while, yet City Of Jasmine, translated from German, reminds me to look outside my native language. It’s a fantastic book. Never will images of boats full of soaked people leave my consciousness. I volunteer with refugee populations, but I need these non-fiction and fictional accounts of prior lives and journeys to help fill my knowledge gaps.

I didn’t abandon the lighter-hearted, fun read. Far from it. I read many. A favourite was Rules For Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane. Maybe it was the timing of my own hopes to reconnect with old friends in England (those still taking my calls) that deepened the meaning of this tale. Or maybe it was the protagonist’s job, her world filled with plants and flowers. Either way, I enjoyed it.

I read my first Stephen King, Duma Key. The author has the potential to do quite well. You heard it here first.

Some 2019 reads I didn’t fully appreciate and one in particular was downright awful (mentioning no names), but each one sharpened my senses for what kind of writer I hope to be. Stephen King (an up-and-coming author I’ve mentioned before) says, ‘If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.’ I believe him. Here’s to taking my open genre mind into 2020 – and into my own writing.

One more thing: I’ve decided not to participate in the Goodreads 2020 Book Challenge, where readers are encouraged to set a goal for number of books they’ll read in a given year. I’m too numbers-oriented for this. I find myself focusing on book count, finishing books I’d rather put side, choosing a shorter book over longer just to chase an arbitrary target. Which I missed. Two years in a row. Dropping that stressor (I need to save all that dopamine and epinephrine for house-buying) means I’ll read exactly what I want, when I want.

I’ll still write reviews of everything I read, of course, as reviews are the lifeblood of any author. If you’ve enjoyed my novels, please consider leaving a review on Amazon, Goodreads, Smashwords, or Barnes and Noble. Then go and read something outside your comfort zone – and review it. Your new favourite authors will thank you. Hey, even Stephen King needs validation every now and then. Wonder if he’s tried to buy a house lately?

Happy reading and/or house-hunting to you all.

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Excuse Not to Write #46: Transatlantic Distractions and Dance Parties

/ Tracey Gemmell / Leave a comment

I admit it. I’m distracted. Which doesn’t bode well for a writer. A recent trip to England, a house search while over there, a million things to contemplate about relocation across the pond, and, well, it’s all spinning in my head and any kind of writing gets side-tracked.

Today, I determined to plonk myself down in the chair and at least write my monthly blog. After all, so many of you wait with bated breath for my confused confessions of an author who feels she’s living in the wrong country. (Note to self: do something more interesting that requires confession. It may increase sales. But I digress …)

With my blogging brain in full rebellion, I vow to write about the first story I see on the internet this morning. With everything in the news right now, I admit it’s a risky strategy. I don’t know enough about Syria, Brexit, the 25th Amendment or the college admissions scandal to educate or entertain you with my analysis. But today I luck out. The first story I see is that Mike Posner has completed his coast-to-coast walk across America. The image is of him rejoicing as he reaches the Pacific Ocean.

For those of you who don’t know Mike Posner, he’s a singer-songwriter famous for his ‘Cooler Than Me’ and ‘I Took a Pill in Ibiza’ chart-topping hits. Oh, wait! I may have something to confess. I absolutely must dance to these songs. I defy anyone not to. They pound in your head and whoosh through your system, your shoulders, hips and feet soon in full party mode. I’m always close to getting a speeding ticket if they come on the car radio. I jack up the volume to an unseemly level for a woman of my … maturity. The arresting officer would say, ‘Aren’t you a bit old for this kind of music and do your children know you listen to songs with four-letter words in them?’ In my defence, the lyrics are rather poignant if you listen to the acoustic versions without the techno-pop-rock beat. And there’s only one swear word in ‘I Took a Pill in Ibiza’. That I bleep out when I sing along. (I’m playing ‘Cooler Than Me’ as I write this. Thank goodness for a standing desk as I rock my moves. No, there’s no video of me dancing. There will never be video of me dancing. You’re welcome.)

But how does Mr Posner’s six-month walk across America relate to me? Well, in all the coverage of his journey, he states he is not the same person as when he left the East Coast of the United States several months ago. A snake bite requiring hospitalization may have something to do with this. But I put to you that no one is the same after travel. Plane, train, automobile and sneaker travel changes you. The people you meet change you. The scenery, the food, the effort, the politics, and yes, even the music, changes you. On Posner’s website, he states one of his goals is ‘Enjoy where I am in the journey. Don’t waste time obsessing about getting to the end.’ His mantra throughout the journey was ‘Keep Going’. And that’s what struck me. Keep Going. As I gear up for the fights ahead with transatlantic property financing, shipping containers, what to leave/sell/donate/destroy, and how to say goodbye to America, I’ll keep Mr Posner’s words close: Keep Going. I’ll get to England eventually. I just needed this reminder to appreciate every step of the journey.

Soon enough, I’ll get back to writing and editing the two novels I’m working on, too. Wish me luck.

Next month, Pauline Wiles, author of the Saffron Sweeting anglophile novels, will be guest blogging about her own transatlantic journey from England to the sunshine of California. Join us!

(Image: Mark Morgan, Flickr)

So, A Veggie Platter Walks into A Courthouse …

/ Tracey Gemmell / 2 Comments

I assisted at a US citizenship oath ceremony last week, held at the District Courthouse in Madison, Wisconsin. By ‘assist’ I mean I crinkle cut vast quantities of veggies and lugged a cooler through courthouse security. No mean feat, actually, as the handle of the cooler wouldn’t fit through the scanner. Therefore, umpteen gallon-size baggies full of carrots, celery, peppers, kale, cucumbers, tomatoes and cauliflower florets had to be hand-screened by three guards wearing earpieces. Can just imagine the conversation with the control room:

‘Sir, she says she cut all these herself using the neighbour’s Pampered Chef crinkle cutter.’

‘No one’s crazy enough to cut that many vegetables by hand.’

‘She’s wearing a wrist brace.’

‘I see. Let her in but keep an eye on her.’

I, of course, had wanted to go all out roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, gravy, trifle, treacle tart and custard. Greater minds prevailed and it was suggested I just go for the veggie platter. Good job, too. Can you imagine the trifle after the hand-screening?

Anyway, security cleared, I waited for the other volunteers to arrive. Soon, stuffed grape leaves, hummus, cheese platters, sheet cake, and baklava were trundling out the back of the security scanner on the conveyer belt. This isn’t what typically comes through the court’s doors. But this ceremony was unique. Open Doors For Refugees – the organization I volunteer with – arranged a special ceremony to be held in Madison. Court officials had to travel from Milwaukee to Madison. The least we could do was feed them.

To be honest, the food was mainly for the oath takers and their families (though we fed everyone – including the security guards). Naturalized citizens – like me – and immigrant organization leaders, including former refugees, provided a welcome lunch for the new citizens once they were sworn in. This is the third year Open Doors For Refugees has held this ceremony in Madison. Apparently, the judges are fighting over who gets to administer the oath. It’s a bright light in what can be a dark world in the district courts. Every other case posted on the courtroom door sounded, let’s say, less upbeat.

Finding myself back in court only a few months after my own Milwaukee induction into US citizenry, it seemed strange to watch it from the other side. Oath takers arrived, nervous, dressed-up, clutching paperwork. Family members followed, excited and proud. For so many it had been a long and arduous journey. If you haven’t been through it, it’s a bit like being the bride: months of prep, of stress, of dress fittings and venue food testing and sweating the cocktail napkin colour choices. When the day arrives, you’re too tired to care if the tiny ring-bearer hurled the cushion into the koi pond or the groom forgot his vows.

Only it’s more than that. It’s many more years of preparation. It’s an even bigger – in many senses -commitment than marriage. It’s loss, or at least change, of one’s long-held concept of home. One of the guest speakers, herself a naturalized citizen, spoke of the changes in terms of grief and the notion that things will never be the same. She spoke of the underlying battle to process who you really are now and how others will view you. What to hang on to and what to leave behind. I found it moving in a way I hadn’t expected. It was my first time holding my hand over my heart and pledging allegiance to the US flag. It centred attention on divided loyalty and homesickness and pride and yes, grief; of being separated from one world while stepping through a door into another. I did it by choice when I married an American and it was still difficult for me. I can’t even imagine how it felt for those who had fled their beloved homes and would choose to still be in those homes if not for war, violence, fear, or persecution.

Some oath-takers brushed away tears through the whole ceremony. What did those tears represent? Regret, homesickness, gratitude, honour, a sense of loss, or a sense of gain? Another gentleman held his right hand so high while taking the oath, I worried he’d lose all feeling in his fingers. It’s a long oath. But his great pride was front and centre. Some spoke fluent English, some struggled to keep up as they read the oath. Some smiled at family, some appeared alone. Some waved American flags, some stared at their flags with looks of confusion. What does it mean to wave this flag now after a lifetime of waving other colours?

It’s a process, this citizenship thing. And I don’t mean just a complex, confusing paperwork process. It’s a process of moving on, of hoping to be accepted while questioning what you’re being accepted into as immigrants at this particular time in American history.

The judge shook my hand and thanked me for all I do for our local immigrant populations. I do so little, wrist brace notwithstanding. I just tutor families in the English language and help with childcare while mothers take classes. Many do so much more. I was embarrassed by the judge’s kind words. But he reminds me these little things send ripples across oceans and influence generations.

It felt good. To belong. To welcome. To feel part of something so much bigger than myself. As this country struggles to redefine itself as part of a global community, I know, wherever I live, I’ll continue to reach out to those from somewhere else.

Welcome, new citizens. Hope you enjoyed the veggies – and that you get the chance to welcome others yourselves soon. Thank you, Open Doors For Refugees, for this opportunity to serve.

This event was part of Welcoming Week 2019, one of 2,000 events held across the US designed to bring together immigrants, refugees and native-born residents in a welcome for all.

For more information on Open Doors For Refugees, go to  http://www.opendoorsforrefugees.org/