Easing life over the seams

Today, as well as the usual chores – cooking, cleaning, watering the veggies etc, I have been doing two particular things. 

The main task of the day has been to read through the 2^nd of the three novels currently with my publisher, Crossway, to prepare a ‘glossary of terms’ for the copy-editor to add in at the end.  This is necessary because the novel is set in medieval England, so some of the words in it – glebe, extern, villein, frater, reredorter for example – are not in everyday use and are likely to be unfamiliar, especially in the US where it will be published.

A long time passes between submitting a manuscript and getting it to the copy-editing stage, and several more months will pass before the time comes for it to be published.  This book, called The Hour Before Dawn, will be out in January 2012 and is part of The Hawk and the Dove series.

[The Hour Before Dawn is the one with your dedication in, Jeannie :0) ]

The second chunky task of the day was to alter three petticoats.  I was slightly changing the necks because they are a bit high.  I don’t know why but I have a particular aversion to anything tight round my throat – I can’t bear cap strings and bonnet-strings at all.  The dresses I’ve had made for me I totally love in every respect except that when the high necks pull against my throat it triggers this aversion.  So I’ve slightly enlarged the necks.  And now the petticoats show a little sometimes, so I’ve altered those too.  I am not an enthusiast for visible underwear!

The new hem to the neck passes across the shoulder seam of course, so in sewing there comes a bulky bit where the needle has to stitch through that seam twice folded as the hem crosses it, if you can imagine what I mean.   What I find is that if I am sewing fast as I cross that lumpy bit, the machine just goes mental, running on the spot and convinced it can’t do it and then seizing up completely.  To get past the hiccup it’s necessary to be sewing slow.  As a bomb disposal expert once said: “Walk towards the problem slowly” – a good maxim for anybody’s crises!

Sewing slowly I can ease the seam along, and sew the hem with no difficulty at all.

Sewing, like all manual tasks, is an opportunity for thoughts to germinate.  The Hour Before Dawn is part of a trilogy that looks at people passing through transition, struggling to understand themselves and each other and assimilate change.  Though it is set in a medieval monastery, it explores many of the life issues and family problems that modern people in the everyday world experience – forgiveness, trying to see the other person’s point of view, struggling to remain faithful to our calling, discovering what that calling might be – sometimes slowly and painfully.

It occurred to me as I was sewing and thinking about the characters in my story getting to grips with the adversities life had thrown at them, that helping each other through the traumas and difficulties which every now and then are part of ordinary life for all of us, is quite similar to easing that hem through the machine as it passes over the shoulder seam.  Life goes along smoothly for a while, and then it hits a lump.  When it does, if you go at it with all guns blazing you just bring the whole thing to a grinding halt, seize up completely.  But if you ease it along slowly and gently, mindful and careful, not rushing, going slow, you get past it ok, and come through to the other side, and things smooth out again.

That’s what I thought.

And I apologise, my friends, if it sounds like a trite diary column from a women’s magazine in the 1930s….

"Aha!" and "Phew!"

These two things are not connected at all, except for inhabiting the same space of time.

This is Thing One.

I have always wondered – and asked several people – about the process of hair going grey.  I’ve been curious to know, does each hair have its own colour, so that if a hair is grey it will be grey all along its length, so the process of going grey happens through the gradual replacement of black/brown/blonde/red hair with grey/white? 

Or does a hair that is coloured at the tip change to grey at the root, so that it’s grey near the head and coloured at the end of its length?  I didn’t know, and nobody I’ve asked has ever been able to tell me – not even people with grey hair.

But now I know.

This year, my hair has advanced significantly in greyness.  It started a while ago, but gave the impression of merely being more blonde than brown.  That’s because there is a lot of red in my hair, and red keeps its colour longest.

But now it is going seriously grey, and it is also long, so it’s possible to see that the truth is a hair can be grey at the root and its original colour at the other end.

Like this. 

So, mystery solved.  How satisfying!

Now, Thing Two.

Today is such a peaceful, happy day.

When I write novels, I don’t start at the beginning and work through to the end.  I make them like a patchwork quilt.  I have a plan, a pattern, that will give shape and cohesion to the whole thing, but then I work on different sections as they present themselves to my imagination.  When one is complete I turn to God in prayer, asking for the next chunk to be downloaded, please.  Not that I claim my writing to come unsullied from the throne of grace, but it is indeed soaked in prayer before it unfolds on the page, not only by me but by the dear friends whose praying helps the story come to birth.

The novel I am writing at present explores themes of home and family, with a special focus of the way we communicate with one another.  It is about two-thirds written, but a big section was missing from Chapter One.

The reason it was missing is that it had to be a most humungous domestic row.  And I hate rows – or even arguments, or even a sense of tension and disharmony.

Much fiction – whether novels, film or television serials – depends on aggression and conflict for dynamic interest and strength.  ‘Dark’ is a very popular word in the world of fiction, and so is ‘adult’.  As though we were immature in some way of we wanted to write/read about the light, about purity and innocence.  In much fiction, innocence is there to be deflowered, love to go sour, friendships to be betrayed and marriages to be spiced up by an adultery.

But this is not what I personally am looking for in a story.  I like stories that will edify me and fill me with hope and faith, that will help me believe in life and in people – and in God.  I like stories that I can transplant into my imagination to make me a better wife and mother, a truer friend, a kinder neighbour.  I like stories that are about goodness and gentleness, about people who try hard – and succeed as a result.

And I don’t want to read graphic descriptions giving explicit detail of the physical events of sexual intercourse, or torture, or other physical close-up material.  In fact, in my own writing I have continually to resist the hankering of the wistful editor to have me tell the reader that a character has body odour or an overbite, greasy hair or a paunch or muscular arms or yellow teeth.  These physical details serve to attract or disgust, to allow the reader to measure the character against the yardstick of what the world calls success; and that isn’t why I’m writing.  In my stories, all the characters are good; that’s what I write about, human goodness – because I have an unshakeable belief that goodness is interesting, and reading about it has a positive effect on the human spirit.  

Occasionally I put in physical detail, and that is often with the intention of countering mainstream prejudice: so, for example, in my books all the fat people are either clever or pretty, and the hero is often unpopular, or disabled, or growing old.  I like to take the characters that are usually given stereotyped bit-parts, and put them centre-stage, and make them loveable and alive.

My stories are sometimes described as ‘slow-moving’.  If there is a Die Hard V, or an Apocalypse III, it won’t be written by me.  I write close observation of human character, relationship, behaviour and experience in the light of the transformative power of divine grace.

And I write about the effect on people when, in adversity, they meet the healing touch of gentleness, goodness and understanding.

So, you can imagine, I do not like writing a humungous row.

It took me ages to gear up to writing the one I just have – hatching it in my spirit felt almost like an illness.  It felt heavy and hard and grievous to bring forth.

Last night at last I wrote it.  I finished the chapter in which it is set – which deals with the misunderstanding, miscommunication and unintentional conflict that bedevil so many families and marriages.  The chapter is about 11,000 words long.  This is how I tested if it had come up good. I read it to the Badger when he came to bed at eleven o’clock, after watching a really interesting drama on TV.  This is a good test – to read a long piece to someone when they are sleepy and ready to doze off.  I finished reading to him at a quarter past midnight, and he was still wide-eyed and gripping the edge of the blanket, invaded by the dilemmas and adversities of my characters.  To be fair, midnight took us into Valentine’s Day, so he possibly thought it might be worth staying awake.  But even hopeful people can’t stay awake on purpose when it’s midnight and they’re bored.  So it came through good.  I got it right.

Thank you to all dear friends who pray for me in my writing.  I cannot tell you what a difference it makes.  The task of writing the things of God in a way that will appeal to the imagination is ministry that sets up opposition, and I am constantly aware of the turbulence it creates.  But I think it is worthwhile.

There are still about 25,000 words to write of that book, but the really gritty, tough bits for me to write are mainly in place.  The rest is easier for me.

Today feels like a real chillout day – and the sun is shining, too.  In fact it’s like a foretaste of summer just now.  No doubt the harsher weather will be back before spring is fully here – but this day is beautiful.  

And I thank God.