A Bad Year for Trees and Other Stories

 

Just in time for Christmas, A Bad Year for Trees would make a good stocking filler for anyone who likes short stories. Almost all of them have been published before, anthologised by other people or even broadcast on Radio 4. 

I've been meaning to collect them together for a long time. At the moment, I have a new non-fiction book, the Last Lancer, going through the Saraband publishing process, I also have some ideas for a brand new project simmering away. Assembling this little retrospective has proved to be a pleasant distraction, especially allowing me to look back at what inspired these stories. 

I think they epitomise something I was told by an (ex) agent. 'Your work is too well written to be popular, but too popular to be really literary,' she said. My bad. 

All the same, it makes them readable! Let me know what you think. 

It's available as an eBook, and now in paperback. I've written other stories, over the years, but these are the ones that I believe have stood the test of time. 

The paperback was published with the invaluable help of Duncan Lockerbie at Lumphanan Press  

New Short Story Collection

 

I've always been fond of short fiction, both as a reader and as a writer, although I must admit that nowadays when I'm writing I tend to want the elbow room of a novel or at the very least a novella. Over the years I've had various stories published in all kinds of magazines, literary and popular. 

In the small hiatus between completing a draft of the current project, The Last Lancer, and thinking 'what next?' I decided to put a small collection of stories together, editing one or two of them. Here it is: a dozen short stories of all kinds from the reasonably literary to a couple of scary ghost stories that turned out to be very popular when first published. 

It's cheap although not always cheerful. But it might entertain you on a train journey or a flight, where you need something that you can pick up and put down as your journey dictates. 

The decision to edit or not to edit past work is an interesting one. On the whole, if something has already been published, it may be better not to change it. As I was working my way through these, I realised that the stories that had been published didn't need polishing. But there were a couple that hadn't found a home, and I took the opportunity to edit them, mainly because with the passage of time, I could see much more clearly what I had wanted to say. Could, in fact, see the wood for the trees. 

You'll find them here - A Bad Year for Trees - and I hope you enjoy them. 

List Making for Beginners: How To Organize Your Writing Life

I'm taking a little break this week from my Canary Isles Odyssey, mainly because I'm so obsessed with my Canary Isles novel, Orange Blossom Love, that I can't find creative space for very much else. Instead, I'm going to be writing about another obsession: lists. A recent excellent blog post by Laura Resnick all about the writing process and how we work as individuals (I can recommend it, especially if you've ever found yourself not so much 'blocked' as 'stuck') mentioned her liking for lists and I immediately thought 'that's me, too!'

I'm a compulsive list maker. A few years ago, I had a conversation with my lovely laid back sister-in-law, in which she mentioned, quite casually, that she 'never ever made lists.' It was my own response to this that fascinated me. I imagined doing without lists and instantly felt queasy. Then I felt a spasm of envy. Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, to be free from the tyranny of the list?  So I tried. I really did. I went cold turkey, tore up my lists. (Sneakily left them on my PC though, just in case.) I lasted about five days. Then panic set in. Just one little list, I thought. But you know how it is? One thing led to another and soon I was hooked, back in full list making mode again.

I sometimes go away for a few days and deliberately leave my lists behind. It's very liberating and I enjoy the break but I can only do it for so long and in specific places. My beloved Isle of Gigha is a pretty good place for doing without lists, a place where mañana is a concept with altogether too much urgency about it. But once I get home, I'm back on them again.

Gigha: a good place for doing without lists.

On the other hand, list making may be a virtue rather than a vice. I'm so reliant on mine that I'm phased by people who - in a professional situation - seem to forget to do the urgent things while concentrating on the unimportant. Don't they ever make lists? Don't they know about organizing and prioritizing? Well, perhaps not. So in case you're a list making novice, and especially if you're a writer and a list making novice, let me give you a few tips from the depths (and believe me they are very deep) of my own experience.

One of our big problems as writers is that we often have an embarrassment of ideas, but don't know which to choose. Or we have said 'yes' to too many proposals and don't know which to work on first. Or we simply have too much to do and find ourselves trying to do everything at once, in a panic. We need to prioritize and the easiest way to do that is by means of a list. Or several lists. Ongoing, organic lists where nothing is fixed. And the easiest way to manage this is on your PC, because you can shift things around. Although I'm a compulsive printer-outer as well. I like to see my lists on paper! You should take a conscious decision to divide your lists into at least two kinds: work and life. If you try to amalgamate the two it will all go pear shaped. Writers love displacement activity and including 'mow the lawn' or (in my case, at the moment) 'sort out the flower pot mountain at the bottom of the garden' on the work list is inadvisable. Work lists are just that - professional projects which involve your business. And if nothing else, the list habit might encourage us all to be more businesslike.

First and foremost, I have a Mega List of planned projects. This includes all kinds of proposals and ideas, everything I may or may not be working on over the next few years, everything from the novel I'm working on right now to the tenuous ideas that intrigue me but may come to nothing. This is a long but fairly uncomplicated list, by the way. I keep detailed notes for each project, not just on the computer but in folders too. I'm paranoid that way. At the moment, my Mega List consists of brief descriptions of fiction, long and short, with one or two non-fiction projects. If I've promised an article to somebody, it might be on there too, but not blog posts like this one. They belong on a different list altogether. I revise the Mega List often and I use it mainly to prioritize but also to sort out my own thoughts about the work. The projects at the top of the list are what I'm working on right now. And they are important to me. The projects at the bottom of the list are interesting but non urgent. I may never work on them, and some of them will almost certainly fall right off the end but that's fine. If I grow bored with an idea, I shouldn't be working on it anyway. Also, outside factors will influence this list. If I find that I have a potential project which is pretty high on my list, and has suddenly become flavour of the year for reasons beyond my control, I can push it up the list. If I'm reluctant to do it, then that tells me something about my own commitment, so I'll think again. I will often add projected dates, but I do try to be realistic. And often - especially at the top of the list - there will be projects which I know will run in parallel with each other so this list will allow me to allocate time to each and to see where I'm overstretching myself. Most of all, this list allows me to focus, set some things aside but remember them and think about them from time to time. And sometimes, for no particular reason other than my own preoccupations, a project will leap over everything else and find itself at the top of the list.

Next is my Things to Do This Week list. 'This week' is a little ambitious, I'll admit. 'This month' would be a better title. This is also a work list, and again the trick is to be realistic in what you can achieve. (I give myself some very good advice but I don't always follow it!) And once more, you need to prioritize. At the top of mine, right now, is 'Short story proofs to be read and sent back' as well as 'Orange Blossom Love, onscreen revisions.' Everything else, including 'For God's sake do your tax returns' can be shuffled down the list a bit, because my accountant has gone on holiday for a few weeks. But he'll be back by the 21st July, so 'You have really GOT to do your tax returns' will probably be top of the list by the end of next week, and I'll bite the bullet and do them.

Finally, for work, I have a Today list and that really is all the things I need to do today in order of priority, including meetings, phonecalls etc. I sometimes allow other things to intrude on this list, but only if they're genuinely urgent and even then I always try to prioritize the work above the household tasks.

Because I sometimes sell antique textiles on eBay to help the budget along, I have an occasional 'Listings list' but the more I self publish, the less I trade on eBay and this is a fairly simple affair. Come October, though, when people turn to eBay for their linen tablecloths for the Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday seasons, as well as quirky gift items, it might grow longer and more complicated.

Besides these, I have a House list and a Garden list and a Shopping list. (I told you, I'm compulsive) The House list involves all the biggish jobs that need doing. This changes - sometimes it's in order of urgency and sometimes, like now, when I'm having a bit of a clear-out, it lists jobs from room to room. It's a very static list! The Garden list is always in order of priority. And yes, sorting out the pot mountain at the bottom of the garden is definitely top of that list. So is the weeding. But even with the weeds it's quite a pretty garden, so the garden list can run and run and run, like the bindweed.

The garden manages quite well on its own!

Recently, I introduced another list. Ever since I started self publishing, I've been uneasily aware that I should be wearing two hats: my publishing hat and my writing hat. My Mega List is a writing list. But this second big list is a sort of Promotion and Publicity list and at the moment, it's in the form of a dialogue with myself. What exactly do I write? What do I want out of the business? What do I want to work on right now? Can I market everything at once? (NO) What's the solution? This has turned out to be the most useful list of all. I don't know where the answers to those questions are coming from, but they have helped me to organize the publishing and promotion side of my business, balancing it with the need to spend the majority of my time on the writing. And it has influenced my Mega List in all kinds of unforeseen but useful ways.

Now it may sound as though I spend all my time writing lists, but I don't. Honestly! Once you've set this up, it only takes a few minutes each day (or the night before) to adjust the To Do Today list, while the Mega List and the Promotion List are only revised once a week - if that. Once a month would probably be enough.

The benefits are considerable - but only if you like lists! You don't forget urgent things. You consciously send non-urgent things to the bottom of the list and stop pretending you have to do them now and using them as displacement activity. You can clarify things in your own mind and get on with what you need to do first. Best of all, you can tick things off!

I do have a small confession to make. I have been known to write things on the list after I've done them, just so that I can have the satisfaction of marking them as done. But I suspect I'm not alone.

So go on, are you a list maker or not? If you are, what's your system? I'd love to know. Why not post a few of your own ideas below!

Eliza Marshall's Tale - For National Short Story Week

We first moved to Scotland when I was twelve years old and - although I've travelled about a bit - I've considered it my home ever since. Much of what I write is set in Scotland. But recently, I've begun to want to go back to my Yorkshire roots. Memories of Leeds are tugging at me, especially the place where I spent the first seven years of my life, industrial Holbeck, demanding to be explored and examined. Next year, therefore, I plan to write Yorkshire Girl,  a very personal memoir of what it was like growing up in Leeds back then. It's something I've tinkered with and thought about for a long time, but now it's positively demanding to be written! Meanwhile, for National Short Story Week, I'm posting a short piece of 'made up truth'. Poor Eliza Marshall gave her testimony to the Factory Commission in 1832 and you'll find her true story here on the wonderful Leodis website. Eliza's story is heartrending. I took some of her words and shaped them into a monologue with a Yorkshire accent. I remember Marshall's Mill from when I was a little girl. Even then, it seemed to be a strange place, one set apart from the clearly industrial buildings round about.

Cellar Dwelling

My name is Eliza, Eliza Marshall, and I live in Bayton Street. We live in a cellar. I pay a shilling a week for it. Nobody lives with us. Not now. What do I do? I do nothing and no, I have no mother. I live with my little sisters. There’s three of us. The youngest is going fifteen. The other’s sixteen. I’m turned eighteen. It’s cold, even in summer. There’s a range when we can get coal but we can’t always afford it. Sometimes we get given a bit. If the neighbours have owt to spare. Damp runs down walls. You can’t keep owt. It all goes black. And there’s bedbugs.  They smell quite nice. I don’t like them. No. But you can squash them if you catch them. What you must do is scrub beds down with paraffin and water, but they get into blankets and there’s nowt you can do about that. My sisters work. They’re spinners an all. I have two and six a week from town. That pays rent and a bit more but I can’t go out to work. Not now.

Yard off Meadow Lane

I were born in Doncaster. I were nine when we came to Leeds. We’d no father so we all had to work one way and another.  Later, we’d a stepfather but he were a great big waste of space. Great big lump of a waste of space. He’d take money and drink it. We lived on Meadow Lane first and I worked at Marshalls. Same name as me. That big mill with great pillars outside.  I thought I were going to church first day it were that strange. Like a palace or something. Then I went to Burgess’s in Lady Lane. That were where I learned to spin.        

I worked from six in morning till seven at night. There were a knocker upper went down street but you’d to pay him a penny a week so we didn’t always do it. Besides, everyone else in house were running up and down stairs so you’d hear them anyway. Nobody slept in. I got three shillings a week and then three and six. After a bit  Mr Warburton took over. I were a good worker so he set me on to doing five to nine. Five in morning till nine at night. You got half an hour for your dinner which you brought with you and heated up. And you knocked off at five on Saturdays. That were good.

Workers in Marshall's Mill

I weren’t lame then. I had my strength very well while we worked from six to seven. I had my health very well till I took from five to nine.  My sister were well an all. She began to fail when we began long hours. I were just turned ten when I began long hours She were turned nine. I tried to leave. I were like killed wi it. My legs were like to break in two. It were work and hours together and always having to stop  flyers wi your knees. It were having to crook your knees to stop flying shuttle as much as owt else. It were heavy and it went that fast and it clattered against your legs and you couldn’t rest.    

Marshall's Mill

Our mother tried to find work for us at Wilkinsons. Wilkinsons were better.But Warburton said I must come back and work for him. I asked Wilkinson what I should do and he said I should go an all. I didn’t know but they were hand in glove at that time. He said Warburton weren’t happy to lose a good worker and he were right. So Warburton asked for me and Wilkinson made me go. What could I do?

It were after I went back that he knocked me down. Warburton. He hadn’t struck me since I were little. He strapped me many a time then. It were a common thing for him to beat hands then. I’d been glad to get away from him. But not long after I went back, he came in and he were that vexed with me for having left him that he just walked up to me and hit me with flat of his hand and sent me flying against my machine. I slid down onto floor and lay there looking up at him. I couldn’t think. He knocked thoughts clean out of my head and I don’t think I've been same since. Mind you I were that weak I were soon knocked down.

I were about eleven when I started to go lame. By the time I were seventeen I couldn’t work in factory. It were just as well because my mother were ill by then. She got  very ill and I had to mind her. When she died my stepfather walked out and left us to fend for ourselves. He said we weren't his and that were true enough.

Timble Bridge

I used to go to Sunday school so I could read a bit. I were learning to write and I could sew. When I couldn’t work in factory any more I thought maybe I could be a dressmaker. I went to Mrs Darley of Timble Bridge to learn. Where that tall house is, near bridge end.  But then my mother fell ill so I had to give that up. And then I were very poorly myself. I’ve never been able to go backwards and forwards since.

The iron is so heavy. It supports me so that I can stand up but I don’t feel any stronger. Sometimes I’m a bit better and then again another day, I can hardly stir.

My sister says we should move closer to Timble Bridge so that I can start sewing again. There's money in sewing. But lessons cost half a guinea a year and besides  I don’t want to move. We’ve lived here seven year. We have friends here to help us if we need them. If my sisters need them. I shouldn’t like to leave them. Where would you be without your friends? No. I shouldn’t like to leave them behind.

If you would like to read more short stories, I have a couple of small collections available on Kindle
A Quiet Afternoon in the Museum of Torture 
and
Stained Glass.