History Will Be Kind

The wonderful Copperfield Review, the award-winning literary journal for writers and readers of historical fiction, is celebrating its fifteenth birthday next October – and will do so, amongst other things, by publishing its first anthology.

Well, I’m enormously proud and happy to announce that my Elizabethan short story, Gentleman in Velvet, will be in the anthology. Fifteen stories were chosen from over three hundred submissions, so I’ll say it again: I’m very proud and honoured that my story was chosen…

Here is a very small preview of Gentleman in Velvet:

I’m in my father’s workshop when the servant brings the velvet. I’m being told off for fighting – for at eight I’m an unruly child. But the arrival of the fabric cuts short the homily, and we – myself and two apprentice boys – flock around the best-lighted, the master’s workbench as my father unfurls the two, three ells of velvet.

It ripples like water – a deep burgundy that turns crimson in the slanting light of afternoon, and black in the heart of its smooth folds. It gives off a clean, warm, rich smell amidst the foulness of pitch and tanned leather. It seems the greatest pity to cut it into a pair of slippers… When I reach out to touch it, it is a rap on the knuckles, and off with me upstairs, in disgrace, for mother and sisters to deal with until supper.

I can’t wait – and I’ll let you know along the way. Meanwhile, imagine me dancing little happy dances…

No Title At All (Yet)

22 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling

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Short story

Finishing the first/third draft.

Very late last night.

And no title at all – yet.

Leaving it sit ths morning (also because I’m having eight people over for lunch…)

Going through it one last time this afternoon, then handing it to my Readers Three.

And what about the title?

Pestering the Readers Three until they’ve told me what they think.

Polishing it up.

Going through one last How Could I Write This How Could I Ever Think I Can Write crisis.

Finding a dratted title.

Sending it away in the nick of time.

Sounds like a plan, doesn’t it?

Writing In December

14 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling

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Christmas, Short Stories, Short story, writing time

Would you believe it is December again?

Yes well, by now it is the middle of December again, but the fact remains.

And I love December – I really do, but all the same I must admit that writing-wise it is a downright dreadful time. You know how it is. Work crowds, because it seems They cannot live unless you give them one more translation, one more piece of editing, one more whatsit before Christmas. And then there are Christmas preparations – which we take very seriously – and shopping trips to town, and Christmas concerts, and Dickens and Tchaikowskij, and then guests begin to arrive…

And yes, it is partly my fault for embarking every year on ludicrously intricate decorating projects, stubbornly baking my own lebkucken cookies and Christmas pudding, trimming two large trees… but the thing is, writing time is in short supply.

And if the shortage weren’t enough, Christmassy ideas keep hitting me smack in the eye: it’s not as if I hadn’t plenty of projects going and deadlines looming, and yet, what do you think I do when I can snatch an hour? Work on my new play? Tweak my almost-completed three-act thing? Make up lines for my opera libretto?

But no – not on my life: there is this little new play set around Christmas Eve, and then, late at night, while I cut and pasted cardboard ornaments for the tree, a notion for a short story blossomed out of an old play, and how can one disregard a new notion for a short story?

And last night, while dining out with friends, a casual piece of conversation sparked off something like a very wintery ghost story – and I just had to sit up very, very late jotting down at least a shadow of an outline…

Which is why I’m hard put not to laugh whenever someone wonders where I find ideas to write, and why I have learned, over the years, to give up December writing-wise, and roll with the cinnamon-scented current. December is December, after all, and another January will be here all too soon.