My literary thriller, The Peace Garden, has just received another good review on Amazon US Kindle.
Really intersting to read all the reviews and see that readers each got something different from it. Some loved the English bit, others the South African; some picked up on the humour, others the tragedy. If you have read the book I’d really appreciate it if you would write a review, as it helps raise its profile and tickles me pink to know I’m helping to put a smile on people’s faces. Ta very muchly. Oh, and you might be interested to know how I got the idea for the book in the first place and how much of it is autobiographical … Where did The Peace Garden come from?
A time for every season under heaven
I’ve just come back from a wonderfully restful holiday on the outskirts of Rothbury, Northumberland. Rothbury is most famously associated with the great industrialist, inventor and philanthropist, Lord William Armstrong. His spectacular home at Cragside was the first in the world to use electric lightbulbs and to be powered by hydroelectricity. Signs of Armstrong’s generosity can be seen all over the North East of England: he donated money to build the Royal Victoria Infirmary where my daughter was born, he founded Newcastle University where I teach in journalism, he donated acres of parkland around Jesmond Dene in the middle of the city where I walk my dogs, and was the benefactor of dozens of charities.
But Armstrong made most of his fortune from the manufacture of armaments (my dad got his first job at the Vickers Armstrong plant that builds tanks). Like most men of his time, he never saw any contradiction in this and his charitable work. To the modern eye, Armstrong was a contradiction. But Rothbury itself is a place of contradictions.
More recently, the country town has been in the news as the site of the last stand of the infamous gunman killer Raoul Moat, who died on the banks of the river Coquet where previously I had walked with my daughter and fed the ducks.
This was the first time I’d visited Rothbury since that manhunt 18 months ago. I couldn’t help thinking of the terror that must have gripped the people there as their whole town was cordoned off by police. Yet, ironically, Moat chose Rothbury because it was the place he felt most at peace.
I was thinking about this tension between war and peace and life and death as I worked on a devotional booklet for CWR called Inspiring Women Every Day. I have been commissioned to write a series on the book of Ecclesiastes. While in Rothbury, I was thinking about the famous passage in chapter three that was immortalised as a protest song by The Byrds in the 60s – Turn, Turn, Turn. (This is a 1990s version by an all-star band, including David Crosby and Roger MGuinn).
The tension between life and death, war and peace and the cycles of nature are found in much of my writing. My literary thriller, The Peace Garden, is a good example.
My thoughts on Ecclesiastes will only be published next spring, but for now, here is a taster:
Reading: Ecc 3:1-8
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” (Ecc 3:1)
I am writing this in a rented country cottage. There are baby rabbits and lambs in the fields. There are blue tits and robins building their nests and a male pheasant impressing his lady friend. Spring flowers are everywhere; the world is full of hope. The last time I was here was it was the end of autumn and birds were fewer and rabbits scarcer. A fox wandered by but didn’t stop, hurrying home before the winter snow set in.
Nature has its seasons. There is a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot. We also have patterns in our lives: we are born, we grow up; we die. In between we might get married and have children; we learn; we work; we retire. Each season has its own challenges.
Spiritually too there are seasons. There is a period of awakening to the whispers of the Holy Spirit; then the moment of immense relief when we ask God to inhabit our hearts. There is the season of rapid growth as we devour the Word and enter into discipleship. There is excitement when we glimpse a potential future and the lull of disappointment when we never seem to reach it. There are the dark nights when God cannot be felt, the spring mornings when hope is renewed, the summery days when we are comfortable in his companionship and the approach of autumn when we start preparing for meeting Him face to face.
Recognising your spiritual season allows you to have grace for your soul. Do not be frustrated if you are no longer busy doing things for God when He has called you to a time of preparation or withdrawal. But learn too to recognise when He is stirring you again to enter a new season of growth.
Father, help me to recognise the spiritual season of my life and grace to embrace all you have for me within it. Amen.
Writing workshop at Recreation Conference
I will be giving a workshop called Writing as Worship and Witness for the Recreation conference at TheHolyBiscuit this weekend. We will be exploring the relationship between writing and faith for Christians as well as getting down to business with paper and pen. The Holy Biscuit in my hometown of Newcastle upon Tyne is an arts hub supporting Christian artists and writers. I hope to start a Write Life group there this summer as a support network for Christians who write, affiliated to the Associtation of Christian Writers. As you may have noticed, I write for both the Christian and general markets. This can cause some difficulties as people like to pigeonhole writers as one of the other. I refuse to be pigeonholed and will be talking about this tension at the Conference.
How to write a children’s picture book
I’ve been giving tips on writing children’s picture books over at the very popular Morgen Bailey’s blog I talk about my process in writing the Myro the Microlight series and the Young David series. Oh, and by the way, work is well under way on the next in the Young David series, David and the Giant! I’ll give you a sneak preview in a few weeks time …
Different Tracks
I’m delighted to have had my first adult anthology of short stories published as an e-book. For a limited period only, Crafty Publishing is giving away free downloads of Different Tracks.
Two of these stories were written when I did my MA in Creative Writing at Northumbria University. The third, Enemy Lines, was made into a short film by FNA films. It was screened at festivals in New York, Jersey, Newcastle and London. You can see a taster of the film here.
I have adapted and extended another of the stories, Another Man’s Shoes, into a feature-length screenplay. Although it has still to attract a producer, the screenplay was a semi-finalist at the Socal Film Festival in California in 2009.
But now, for the very first time, you can read the original stories as they were first written.
The Yacht Trip
Can a ghostly meeting on a remote Northumberland coast prevent a tragedy?
Enemy Lines
A soldier and a war protester change sides. Will love conquer all?
Another Man’s Shoes
It is said we all have a doppelganger. But what happens if yours is already dead?
‘Different Tracks‘: sometimes it’s only when you change tracks that you realise the route you should have taken.
The Peace Garden on Smashwords
My literary thriller, The Peace Garden, has finally been released on Smashwords! This means that you can now read it on a range of devices including iPads, iPhones and any other iThingies you may possess. You can also read it in pdf on your computer, plus a host of other devices including Nook, Android and of course, Kindle. In addition, you can download the first few chapters for free! So whadya waiting for?
