A few days ago this happened on Twitter:
[Me:] My POV this why Pollyanna must rule. RT @guardianbooks: When authors attack http://bit.ly/6CiQyq But but BUT, maybe I’ll write blog rant.
[From] radmilibrarian @robinmckinley Saw that last week when it was still unfolding. Probably also why authors shouldn’t read their Amazon reviews.
[Me:] @radmilibrarian Was it you sent me the link? I saw it too. But that someone(s) went too far obscures that there’s a real point 2 b made.
[From] radmilibrarian @robinmckinley No, I sent you the Alice Hoffman one from a while ago. Also knew about Anne Rice one from years back. Point: authors r ppl 2?
Basically, yes: authors r ppl 2. Er. Authors are people too.* I’ve written about this before but it bears repeating**. We are not Other. We are you. What marks us out from the population in general is merely that we have cracks in our skulls where the stories come through*** as opposed to any other exotic/desirable/really weird thing that someone else might have. Cascades of black hair and a singing voice to die for, for example.† Or a sad predilection for elephant jokes†† and snaggly teeth.††† It’s all just a variety of takes on the concept of human.
I don’t read my reviews on amazon. Someone would have to hold a gun to my head first, and I’d really rather they didn’t. I’d probably find the reviews even more upsetting than the gun. I don’t think I’d be tempted to ring the FBI‡ if somebody posted that I should get a job as a florist or a peeler at a marmalade factory ‡‡, but allow me to point out (you will be having an easier time following me here if you’ve clicked on the ‘when authors attack’ link) that someone who is writing paperback-original romances probably doesn’t have any control over what’s on her book jacket, and probably does have a lot of absolute mandates from her editor. This doesn’t mean that she’d be a great writer if she were left to her own devices, only that she probably has some excuse for feeling frustrated and badly treated.‡‡‡ She’s still responsible for making herself look like a jackass in public, but people under stress don’t always behave beautifully—and for all we know her bank had foreclosed on her house last month and her husband ran off with the plumber.§
I am left to my own devices, mostly, and I would rather become a florist or a peeler at a marmalade factory than blame my editor for anything that appears on the printed page§§ but one of the permanent pains in the a . . . one of the inevitable and inescapable conflicts between writer and reader is that what you the writer are, or think you are, or think you are trying to be, doing, and what the reader reads are frequently two spectacularly, frellingly different things. This often causes . . . miscommunication.§§§ This is why criticism is so difficult to deal with . . . and for me it’s also why 95% of it is useless. Because the reader isn’t starting from where I’m starting. I can’t begin to tell you how important this is—and why therefore the writer’s responsibility for the story is so . . . well, stunning, which is an adjective I try not to use because it means blunt instrument to the base of the skull, but in this case that’s a very apt metaphor. Blunt instrument to the base of the skull. Yes. Stars, singing birds, swirly hallucinatory visual things and one gobsmacker of a headache. My first, last, and in-between loyalties are all to the story—and in my case 95% of the writing and the rewriting for me is listening to the story. It tells me what I need to do. The critical 5% I need from readers is where I don’t know that I’ve botched it—where the story may well be shouting at me but I’m not hearing it. There are lots of writers who like lots of input from the tottery beginnings of the first draft onwards. Not me. Other voices just make hearing the story harder. But ultimately, however the writer gets to the end, the story is the writer’s responsibility—no one else’s. And those of us who take stories seriously—and most writers and most readers do—take that responsibility seriously. This is a stressful situation by definition. For better and for worse. For clear-headed elucidation . . . and dark tangled ratbaggery.
It’s later than it ought to be (how did it get this late?) and I have to get up and ring bells at 8:45a.m. tomorrow morning again, but write this down: Authors are human. Just like all the other homo sapiens on the planet. Unfortunately this sometimes means we make idiots of ourselves. Publicly.
* * *
* I am driven mildly mad over the whole txt thing. Slightly less mildly now that I’m on Twitter, where 140 characters means that I have to worry about shortcuts. There will probably be a rant about this soon too.
** Although I fear that on this blog I am preaching to the converted. Oh, well, maybe there are a few innocent PhD combinatorics and ergodic theory lurkers out there somewhere who have got mesmerized by Days in the Life against their will for whom this will come as a blinding blaze of light and truth and change their lives forever.
*** The Story Council of course frequently sends them in non-standard envelope sizes so you wake up with another thundering headache because the postperson has folded the next instalment in half and banged it through the slot willy-nilly. And then you get the envelope open and discover that the font is Old High Gxyfylon and then you burst into tears.
† I’ve just been watching Angela Gheorghiu in La Boheme which may be what has put that thought into my mind. An opera every night for a month on Sky is starting to give me pink elephants.
†† So last century.^
^How can you tell if there’s an elephant in the room?+
How can you tell if an elephant has been in your refrigerator?++
††† Writers can have other individual characteristics too, you know.
‡ But I’m a wet knee-jerk liberal and not a big fan of the FBI
‡‡ But then I wouldn’t have read it, unless there was a gun to my head. The gun-wielder might demand I ring the FBI, I suppose.
‡‡‡ I myself am a lot more likely to take her internet connection away from her and send her for retraining as a widget-stamper for her misuse of quotation marks. http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/
§ Which is what I’m convinced happened with Alice Hoffman. I have no idea, but I’ve been a fan of hers for decades and met her a few times many years ago when the world, including her and me, was young, and I liked and admired her. And I’m sorry she had a really really really bad day . . . and if I were the reviewer I’d want her guts on a plate. But I have a certain tendency toward bad days myself . . . which is why Pollyanna has me on a short chain. A short spiked chain. And why I don’t read my own reviews.
§§ Although I would still be more than happy to peel and render into splinters the clever-clogs who tidied up SUNSHINE’s usage after I had signed off on the final proof pages
§§§ Possibly my pet authorial hate above all other pet hates^ is people who lambaste you not for the book you wrote, but for the book they wanted to read which is not the book you wrote.
^ This is rather drastic, but it’s probably the rabid wolverine to beat.
+ You can smell the peanuts on its breath.
++ Look for footprints in the butter.
Merry/Happy Christmas
SUNLIGHT.
And, furthermore, we got out of town. For the first time since the meteorological siege began. The pavements are thawing, the roads are almost clear. Hellhounds and I had a proper hurtle today. Yaaay.
And the hellhounds are on lead despite huge open grassy field dazzlingly devoid of livestock because there are a bunch of frelling walkers coming up behind us. What is the matter with people that they go for a walk on Christmas Day, especially on an utterly glorious clear sunny Christmas which is furthermore the first time we’ve seen blue sky in about six months?*
It’s a little scary, realising just how reliant my mental and emotional health** are on pelting over the countryside every day. *** Back in Maine I produced the necessary effect during the three foot of snow months with a rowing machine and Led Zep † cranked up really loud. But I’d have trouble going back to that system after nearly twenty years in southern England.
Mmmmmm.
And yes, I did get the tree decorated. The plain brown Fortnum and Mason’s box contains champagne.
* * *
* Nearly
** Cough cough cough etc
*** Which of course makes me think of Luke, who can’t pelt anywhere right now. Sigh.
† And various other far more embarrassing sources of sweat-inducing noise.
A Christmas Story
Bah Humbug*
The weather continues inexpressibly delightful. Rain, sleet, hail, snow, freezing rain**, freezing fog. And occasional lightning and thunder, just to make sure we’re paying attention.*** Wolfgang, however, bless his pointed little carburettor, is part gecko†, and we’re still getting up and down various hills . . . slowly.††
The splendour of wading and crashing through the countryside also carries on in rejoicing. We’ve had melt/freeze so long now that you never know what the hell you’re walking on: you may fall through the glacier at any moment and find yourself up to the ankles in cooooooold bog. But as I keep saying it’s the pavements in town, and the footpaths close round its edges, that are titanium-alloy ice from everybody and their dog(s) trampling it like the smith’s hammer whacks the nonsense out of that berserker’s blade. And it’s not gonna melt. Barring a very large blowtorch I think we’ve had it till July.
And have I mentioned I have to ring bells tomorrow morning at 8:45?
Right now I have to go decorate a tree. †††
* * *
* Guarded good news about—let’s call him Luke. He’s still in intensive care, but he’s come round and the surgeon is pleased and says he’s ‘making progress’.
** http://www.wmur.com/weather/4086245/detail.html
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1668/whats-the-difference-between-hail-sleet-and-freezing-rain Hunh. You pays yer money and takes yer pick. I think hail is hail any time of year and sleet is slightly solider freezing rain. Sleet stings. Hail bruises.
***FOR PITY’S SAKE WE’RE PAYING ATTENTION
† Interesting in a German car
†† We tend to go down the main street hill at mmmph o’clock in the morning in a kind of gentle, engaged half pass.^ But there’s nobody else on the road so hey. And the side of the road you drive up is clearer, for some reason^^, and we stay as far over as possible toward the kerb on our way to the mews at lunchtime to give people on the downhill side plenty of room for canter pirouettes or whatever.
My little cul de sac is probably the most fun per square inch though. Drivers who aren’t used to it get the jimjams in good weather^^^; it’s narrow enough that you can’t get doors on both sides of your car fully open at the same time, and the walls are brick and flint house walls. So as you make that turn up from the main road you also have several split-second tactical decisions to make simultaneously about traction, velocity, how devoted you are to your fenders maintaining their current configuration, and the run you’re going to need to make it to the summit in current underwheel conditions.
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_pass
^^ Trees
^^^ Which is also why Atlas is building me a brick planter this winter+. I’m frelling tired of morons in SUVs who haven’t figured out that that big circular thing over the go pedal is a steering wheel taking out my flower pots because they can. If you haven’t run into my staircase, which is twice the width, you don’t have to run into my flower pots. Grrrrrrr.++
+ Supposing the weather lets him.
++ Although after this winter~ I may not have any pots left. ~~ That putting-them-up-on-feet-to-allow-free-drainage thing is a scam invented by the makers of plant-pot feet.
~ And for anyone who doesn’t read Twitter, or who possibly didn’t bother to click on this link, retweeted by and from the inestimable David Malki# http://bit.ly/62GkYi click it now, okay?
Yes, that David Malki
~~ Although I should have some plants. Atlas and I did finally get the green/summerhouse at Third House more or less put together. I think. Now I have to remember to keep Jungle Number Two watered. Jungle Number One seems merely to have expanded to fill the available space, like housework according to Betty Friedan. The top of the hellhound crate is clear, but I’ve somehow got more plants in windowsills at the cottage than ever before; indoor light has become green, and I’m expecting the monkeys and the toucans to move in any day.
Sigh. I was going to have Third House sorted by Christmas this year. I was going to keep the Gift Hoard and the Gift Wrapping (Hoard) at Third House so I don’t spend the entire month of December tripping over it at the cottage.
††† Funny thing, the first decorations to go up are the velvet roses. 
We’ve also got a decorated lamp this year. This is the wreath that hangs on the front door, right? Not in this weather.
Christmas Food – a guest recipe
from B-Twin
Christmas Food
Section C: Desserts
There are many things to have when it comes to Christmas desserts. I love plum pudding but I haven’t attempted to try and better my Aunt’s recipe yet as I’ve tended to make other things. Here in the Southern Hemisphere it is high Summer of course and that has a slight bearing on choices we make. ;)
Pavlova is an Australian and New Zealand institution. There are several ways to make it but basically it is a meringue. We smother it in cream and fruit. So how could this get any better?? Add chocolate of course! I was treated to my first chocolate pavlova last year. It was a real eye-opener and, I discovered, very easy to make!
Chocolate Pavlova
Ingredients:
6 egg whites, room temperature
300g / 10.5oz caster/superfine sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa powder, sieved
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
50g / 1.75oz Lindt dark chocolate (I use the 70%), finely chopped
Method:
Note: Pavlovas are easy but there are a couple of rules – 1) bowl and utensils must be spotlessly clean and dry; 2) no egg yolk AT ALL in the whites; 3) The fresher the eggs the longer they will take to whip up; 4) No wooden spoons! Use only metal or very clean plastic bowls and utensils; 5) Pavlovas usually crash in the centre. It’s okay. :-)
- Preheat the oven to 180C / gas mark 4 / 350F (** if using a fan-forced oven you need to reduce the temperatures)
- Line a baking tray with baking paper – I use a solid base pizza tray and mark a 21cm/9” circle on the paper.
- Beat the egg whites until satiny peaks form (please use a mixer – I’d hate for anyone to inadvertently get fresh eggs then try this by hand and have it take half an hour!!) and then drizzle the sugar in slowly while the beater is still going. If your setup doesn’t allow that then stop the beaters, add a little sugar then beat some more.
- Keep those beaters going until stiff peaks form (test this by stopping, then lifting the beaters up – the peaks should hold shape and not flop over)
- Then carefully sprinkle the cocoa evenly over the egg whites, then the vinegar and the chopped chocolate.
- CAREFULLY fold everything through with a metal spatula/spoon until the cocoa is thoroughly mixed. Remember that you need that air!
- Mound the mix onto the baking tray, following the line you drew earlier. The trick here is to move the mix as little as possible so try to place the mix onto the right place on the paper. Smooth the sides and top (draw the spatula up the sides to achieve neatness).
- Place in oven and immediately turn the oven DOWN to 150C/gas mark 2 / 300F
- Cook for 1 – 1 ¼ hrs.
- When it is ready it should look crisp around the edges and on the sides and be dry on top, but when you prod the centre you should feel the promise of squishiness beneath your fingers.
- Turn the oven off and carefully open the door slightly so it stays open a little. Let the pavlova cool completely. Or, leave the pavlova in the oven with the door closed overnight if you don’t need it that day.
Topping for a pavlova:
This one tastes great with cream and fresh/frozen raspberries on top. Most people use whipping cream but I don’t like that as it makes my stomach turn – so I use REAL cream (45% + milk fat) and just slop it all on and then pile the fruit on. If you need more chocolate then grate some on top.
Pavlova, “undressed”, does not need to stay in the fridge. In fact it is better not too as the moisture in the fridge will affect the meringue. This meringue will store well in a cool dry place for a couple of days until you need to dress it up.
This version comes from Nigella Lawson’s recipe.