Lynne to earth, incoming. From the Edinburgh Festival. Oh, and wow. It was epic. I can’t stop smiling.

Have you ever been? If not, I urge you bucket-list it immediately. I’m stunned that I’ve lived fifty six years on this planet and at no point during the last fifty five and a half of them did it occur to me to go – doubly astonishing given how much I love Edinburgh.

More generally, however, it has reinforced something I think I always knew, but perhaps had lost sight of.

Festivals rock. And not just rock festivals either. Folk festivals. Food festivals. Art festivals. Book festivals. Craft festivals. Dance festivals. Festivals of speed. It’s not rocket science (oh, look, there’s another one – science festivals). Affix the word festival to any human gathering, and watch alchemy happening before your eyes.

All this, you might argue, is hardly noteworthy. A festival, by definition, is a fun thing to be a part of. How could human nature fail to blossom in such fertile surroundings? It’s common sense, to be expected, self-evident.

But is it? I’ve been giving it a lot of thought since last weekend, and now I’m not sure. Not for many of us. I’ll hazard a guess that for every person who is currently nodding empathetically, there’ll be at least two others, perhaps more, who would disagree entirely, seeing the word ‘festival’ and thinking “not bloody likely”. All those people. All that grass. All those marquees and burgundians. All that bumping and jostling and parking half-a-bloody-mile-away. All that al fresco eating. All those wasps. All that hassle. All that queuing for toilets that are as noisome as slurry. All that waiting in line, parched and irritable and narked, to buy drinks served in cheap plastic tumblers. Most of all, all that fraternizing – with living, breathing humans. All that irritating, irksome PROXIMITY.

Because that’s what it amounts to, for the most part, I think. That, for some people (and I hesitate to use the word ‘misanthropic’ here) having to spend time with other people – with strangers, en masse – is synonymous with a kind of hell on earth.

But that’s precisely where the alchemy happens. Last weekend, for example, it rained. Started just at the point when the four of us finally found a table, outside a packed bistro, in a tiny covered space.

As tables went, it turned out to be challenging. Just big enough for two, it was only half under cover, but we scrunched up and made the best of it, as you do. And then a tap on the shoulder and a solution being proffered. From the group of six next to us, who, not remotely unreasonably, had three similar-sized tables between them.

“Look,” one suggested, “how about we give you one of our tables?”

“No, it’s fine,” we all trilled, in that way us British do. “No, it’s not,” they trilled back, and would not be deflected. The tables were duly rearranged.

Then, when we left, two ladies were hovering, obviously keen to bag our table. So we vacated our seats for them while Pete went and paid, not least so they could escape the gathering rain. Which it seemed we would not, as we had no umbrellas. “We’ll have to nip and buy one,” I suggested to Joe’s Hannah. Upon which one of the ladies opposite brandished hers.

‘Och, have mine,” she said, proffering it. “Go on, take it.”

“But what about you?” I said, this being the obvious question, not least because both women had proper, pukka hairdos. Not least because we’d never see them again.

“Och, I’ll share hers,” she said, nodding towards her friend. And, again, she would not be deflected.

And so it goes, I’ve come to realise. At a festival this is normal. Affix the F word to any gathering, and the K word tags along. People just become kinder, end of. They stand in queues and don’t whine. Indeed, they do something increasingly rare now – instead of tutting, they start conversations. You know, friendly conversations, with complete strangers. They join shuffling herds without harping on about how tedious it all is. They spontaneously sit down on small patches of astroturf, and when a drink slops in passing, they don’t become aggressive. They say, “no worries! Honestly! It’s fine!”

That’s the alchemy. That people start to LIKE people more. So here’s a thought. Why can’t we try to be like that ALL the time?

As I say, Lynne to earth. Not quite down…

First published in the Western Mail Weekend Magazine August 29th 2015

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I am, of late, astoundingly well-organised. Yes, as a result of the early 2015 Great Storage Epoch (and a small window of opportunityFullSizeRender-3 between writing books) I have been beating off the jabberwocky of encroaching domestic chaos, on fronts both big and medium sized, and small.

And, indeed, smalls. For among other things, I have revolutionized my knicker drawer. No longer is it a formless rolling sea of untamed underthings. It is a thing of beauty, of order, of architecturally-hewn restraint. It is, finally, fit for frilly purpose.

It is also compartmentalized, which is always a good thing for a knicker drawer to be, avoiding both the obvious pitfalls of not being able to find that particularly cherished black pair among the crowd of lesser black pairs, and the less obvious pitfall of ‘reluctant burrowing thong’, which law states that the thong you want for that all-too-imminent aerobics class will have not only found its way to the furthest reaches of the drawer but will also have disguised itself as a scrunchie or suspender belt. For thongs are evil and this is the kind of thing they do.

My chosen compartments – courtesy IKEA – are as simple as they’re sound. The mainstream and much-loved, naturally sub-categorized ‘black’ and ‘other’, the specialist (those hated thongs, the ‘engineering’ section), the VPL pile (oft required, much reviled for their wedginess) , and the optimistic (pants bought in haste, but repented at leisure – chiefly in the matter of remembering whose lumpen body such beguiling wisps of pant-hood were to be applied).

Then, of course, there is the Zone Brassiere.

Like most women in the developed world, I have a complicated relationship with my upper body undies. The mainstays (and they are, too) of the vexed world of feminine scaffolding, bras are necessary, revered even, for their magical properties. But oh, how fabulous they are to sling off at the end of the day, in the manner of a spent medieval jouster, shedding armour, while crying ‘mon dieu, je suis tres glad to get that lot off!’ (As historians will know, most medievals spoke early Franglish.)

My bra zone is equally well organised. The ones I like to wear (numbering no more than three at any given time, if that) and the ones I thought I might, but don’t because they are basically ‘a bit grrr’. (Much polka-dotted, lace-bedecked, itchy-scratchy stuff resides there.) Finally, there’s the odds-and-sods nook for sundry strappage and joinage, which, because I dress shop a great deal more savvily than I used to, barely ever needs to see the light of day.

And what of it? This small homage to organising smalls? Well, it’s because yesterday, on my virtual travels, I was arrested by a website. Of a self-described ‘young charity’ (which appeals to me immediately) set up by a woman who’s spent time volunteering in the third world, and whose mission, put simply, is to get our unwanted underwear to Africa. Or, as she puts it, to deliver ‘smalls for all’.

As with most contrasts these days between the first world and the third, there is nothing new or shocking in the fact that African women and children lack pants. Of course they do. They lack almost everything we tend to take for granted – a fact we probably take for granted too.

Yet, spelled out, it was both unsettling and welcome to be reminded that, in places like Kenya, Ethiopia and Malawi, women and children often have just one tatty pair to their name, and that’s if they have pants at all.

Then there are bras. Well, actually, it turns out that there are not. Which is a bigger deal that perhaps people realise. Because in such places a bra, being so expensive, confers status – and not in the way a Chanel handbag might do.

It says ‘I am not alone. I can afford underwear because there is a man in my life. A father, husband, or brother, who can protect me’.

In short, where pants bring welcome health benefits, increase school attendance and restore feminine dignity, a bra adds even more. It gives vulnerable women and girls some much needed security. The naked truth? That the impulse buy that sits unloved and unworn in my drawer could, if re-homed, protect a girl from being raped.

Sobering, no? And a kick up the backside to further sort out my smalls. Some into a box, bound for the post office,right away.

www.smallsforall.org

First published in the Western Mail ‘Weekend’ Magazine,

8th August 2015

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There is nothing like a bestseller to brighten an author’s day. And, happily, by the powers of the mighty behemoth* that is Amazon,the modern author can enjoy a veritable smorgasbord of novel_sbestsellers. ‘In Authorship’ in this case (which is both appropriate and pleasing) but as we who peddle ebooks cannot fail to be aware of, there are these days almost as many categories of potential top-of-the-chartiness as there are categories, however niche, of books. ‘In memoir’, for example, or in ‘Commercial Women’s Fiction’, but I would bat not an eyelid if a book of mine hit the top spot ‘In books set in Cardiff with a sub-plot involving Moles‘, say, or ‘In novels containing the verb “to discombobulate”‘.

But it’s no less nice, for all that, because as authors also know,the oxygen of publicity is a particularly heady kind of oxygen, augmented, as it is, by precious molecules of potential, dancing around (as they do) with ones of joy.

So it is that I’m pleased to be able to state, unequivocally, that if you’re an Australian fledgling novelist, full of ambition but lacking focus, my little ebook – NOVEL, currently just $0.99 – is THE ebook to set you on your way. And that’s official. For the moment at least 🙂

*Other definitions are, of course, available.

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One of the by-products of the solitary, authorly life is that, devoid of the distraction of colleagues, we tend to work – and think – in isolation, untroubled by the concerns of the wider world.

Which is why the arrival in the post of an unexpected ballot paper brings such a pleasing little frisson. Naked power. That’s what it is. All those pitches to consider, and the ability to make a change to the course of history.

Yes, I know. Only in a small way. But as somebody wise once observed, you can’t change the world. Only the little corner you inhabit.

But the problem with power is that to effect change for good, it needs to be wielded with consideration. For the issues, for the goals, for the likely ramifications, and other philosophical details like that.

This ballot, however, to a great extent defeats me, since it’s the election to the management committee of my professional organization, and, unsurprisingly, since it counts 9000 writers among its number, I haven’t a clue who any of them are.
So how to vote? On what criteria to make the choice, when my only source of information is the candidate’s pitch? And the candidates are all gifted writers?

You have probably never wondered about my double-barrelled surname (stay with me on this) but if, by chance, you have, here’s the lowdown. I wasn’t born with it. Much as it might be natural to assume I’m part of some aristocratic dynasty that goes back as far as the crusades (no giggling at the back, please) I was born a Barrett, part of a working-class south London family, who can trace their lineage to a skirmish in 16th century Clapham, via a couple of Spaniards, and the odd Italian.

No, I became a Barrett-Lee when Pete and I got married – an initiative borne not just out of feminist principles, but because we were wed during a time when there was favouritism towards four things above all – people who were white, middle-class, British, and male.

Pete, fresh out of medical school, was at least three of those. No, he’d never played rugby (an EXTREMELY big handicap) but on a CV, he already ticked most of the boxes. But for two things – his birthplace was Singapore, where his dad had previously worked, and his surname was Lee.

So I was ruthless. I campaigned for that hyphen in order to overcome the appalling racism of the early 1980s, which could so easily have affected his career. (Others, sadly, had no such opportunity. Do such prejudices still exist? Sadly, I reckon so.)

And so to committees, and the related business of who might be best suited to form them.

I have some experience of committees, and the one thing that strikes me is that they invariably become more that the sum of their parts. Hence if they’re diverse and full of conflict and creativity and passion they can, and do, achieve brilliant things.

But if they’re homogeneous, and confident, and in agreement about most things, they are often – even if unwittingly – inclined to perpetuate the status quo, in such a way that favours a very limited world-view.

As in committees as in life, eh? So I shall wield my power wisely.

I shall choose the man who refers to himself in the third person and, rather daringly, quotes Coolidge (‘nothing is as common as unsuccessful people with talent’. And this to a bunch of struggling creatives. Ballsy).

The woman who, rather thrillingly, self-published ‘Overcoming Gallstones’,  an uninterrupted flow of bile being what every dynamic committee needs, and because she seems like a broad who will get things moving.

The woman whose name I can’t pronounce and translates air crash reports – the first because as an Englishwoman in Wales, regular mispronunciation has been the making of me, and the second because I have a hunch she’ll have an excellent sense of perspective.

And, finally, the woman who, quite by coincidence, stayed at the same villa in southern France as we did back in 1999 – and left only a DAY before we did, to boot, just three weeks after I had finished reading one of her novels. Spooky, no? And, yes, I do realise – also rather tenuous. But then, tarot and astrology endure, do they not?

So that’s me done. And via what seems as logical a way as any. Much looking forward to the first AGM.

First published in the Western Mail Saturday Magazine 11.7.15

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telling_sIt’s been a while, hasn’t it? And I have an excellent excuse. In the manner of a drunk stumbling home from the local, I lost my keys and couldn’t get into my own website. I’m not sure why I’m admitting that, as it’s a pretty epic fail, and also testament to what’s been happening to me increasingly since I relocated from my Proper Office (which fairly thrums with efficiency) to the kitchen, where I work pretty chaotically at the table, fielding keyboard assaults from the cats.

But no matter. I’m here now, as well as all over, on account of what’s happening increasingly also – the urgent need to promote. It’s not MY need, exactly; I feel I have to stress that. In my writing utopia such matters as ‘engagement’ would be the business of someone else, like it was back in the old days. (No, scrub that, in fact, in the old days it was no different. You just used a different set of tools, such as the book-jacket postcard, printed up and left in strategic locations, and the bookshop shuffle, in which when in the vicinity of any book retailer, you relocated all your Author A-Z stock to the tables at the front.)

novel_sBut I don’t know. Maybe there is more pressure on an author these days. And that’s perhaps because today you really can make a difference. Those two extra sales in WHS Croydon were risible; a drop in the ocean for a big publisher. Today, the potential to make serious, sweeping changes to a book’s chances – particularly if an ebook – is real.

So here I am, popping up like an internet rash (which I guess is appropriate, since we’re all about going viral, after all) and, as I’ve just returned home from my once a week bout of creative writing teaching, I wonder if I’m teaching what amateur writers really need to know any more. Yes, of courseI am –  there are no book sales without books written in the first place  – but when I talk about researching a literary agent, can they not justifiably ask why? Might their time not be better spent tracking down a crack internet marketer? In learning how to shift ‘product’?  On boning up on how to best play the bright shiny new system, the rules of which are as capricious and ever-changing as the light?

I’m not sure. But what I do know is that though I still spend the majority of my time on the creative part – the actual writing – when not writing, I have the sort of gnawing restlessness that used to dog me back when I worked in a day job and couldn’t write.  It’s just the same; this nagging sense that I’m not being creative enough –  not at creation itself (that IS the day job) but at the craft of exploiting the opportunities that have mushroomed out of the shift – which is seismic – from the traditional publishing family tree to the branch of the sciences that’s given us the digital book. And am I? Probably not.

Which as anyone can see, consists of way too many words to tweet. Which means I have probably answered my own question. And so to the point of this ‘supposed-to-be-brief’ linking-post-thing, which is to say (see para 2) that should you feel inclined to read it, I’ve done a ‘ten tips’ thing for that wonderful ezine Words With Jam, in this case on how to write better short stories, based on my face-to-face short story writing course, Telling Tales. And as I’m here, and might as well go the whole promo hog, I’ll also mention that if novel writing’s more of your thing, you can –  quite coincidentally ( no, really) – pick up a copy of NOVEL, the ebook based on mynovel writing course, for just 99p for a limited time, here.

So that’s me done for the moment. And back to the writing. With extra jam. :)

 

 

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There are some writing watersheds that have a tendency to stay with you.  Your first rejection. Your first acceptance. That moment when you think you conceivably COULD give up your day job.  The day you type ‘The End’ at the bottom of a 300 page manuscript. (Incidentally, when it’s edited, those words are routinely removed.) But some of the most enduring memories are often the quirkiest. Those moments when the writing seems to come from some deep, un-censorable part of you, and spills onto the page or screen like so much unexpected glitter. It might not result in your winning the Booker, but such outpourings can still be precious. Because rather than you writing them, they almost happen TO you. And when that happens – that glorious spewing waterfall of words – you know they will almost certainly connect with someone somewhere.

And so… It’s December. You want a real tree (no exceptions). You acquire one. You have a simple plan for it: To be done.

Now read on:

‘Thursday. In a spirit of joy (tinged only marginally by the bonk-question stress/Adam Jones thoughts-avoidance stress/respect for the newly departed etc) I decide to put the tree up.

In fact; go into garage, remove argumentative protective netting from tree, spray tree with tree saver, have fifteen minute coughing fit, find bucket, find bag of gravel, pour gravel into bucket, put tree in bucket, free hair from tree, take tree out of bucket, re-arrange gravel, put tree back in bucket, take tree out of bucket, raid perimeter of house for supplementary gravel, put tree back in bucket, free hair from tree, wonder why didn’t put tree in bucket while netting still in place, drag bucket plus tree through kitchen, hall, lounge. Position tree in centre of lounge, move sofa, coffee table, magazine rack and standard lamp to other side of lounge, re-position tree in front of patio doors, wonder why didn’t bring tree in via patio doors in first place, adjust tree in bucket, lash tree to radiator pipe for security.

VirtualStrangersCover_websiteGo back into garage, find decorative half barrel, bring decorative half-barrel inside, attempt to stand bucket in half barrel, remove half of gravel, attempt to stand bucket in half barrel, detach tree from radiator pipe, reposition tree in bucket, stand bucket in half barrel, put gravel back in bucket, re-lash tree to radiator pipe, step on assorted invertebrate life previously resident in half barrel, check tree for branch symmetry, hack off lower branch on right to achieve, hack off supplementary lower branch on left to balance, place hacked lower left branch on top of  sparse lower right region to re-balance, add water to bucket, get kitchen roll from kitchen, mop carpet around barrel area.
Get decorations from loft, unwind lights, check lights, mend fuse in plug, replace five bulbs, re-check lights, wind lights around tree. Run out halfway down, unwind lights, re-wind lights, run out of lights two-thirds way down, curse, go to local sweet shop, purchase supplementary light set, return, wind supplementary light set around bottom of tree, check lights, find lights don’t work, replace bulb, go upstairs and look for adaptor, take adaptor from Ben’s room, make note to replace later, switch on all lights, say ahhh!, switch off lights, get baubles out.

Put angel on top, adjust dress, hang baubles, dislike layout of baubles, curse, re-arrange baubles, hang last family heirloom delicate glass bird-of-paradise decoration, hang miscellaneous colour co-ordinated decorations, hang chocolate umbrellas, remember have tinsel to deploy, curse, get tinsel, weave tinsel carefully through lights, baubles, umbrellas etc., knock decorations off branches, curse, step on family heirloom delicate glass bird-of-paradise decoration, curse again, remember box of decorations made by Dan and Ben at nursery/infant/junior school, get box, hang falling-to-bits sugar paper plus glitter plus pasta and pulses decorations on inconspicuous parts of tree, feel guilty, re-hang in pride of place positions, groan, re-hang select few in compromise positions,  return remainder to box, switch lights on, curse, check bulbs, curse again, check bulbs again, find culprit, replace bulb, eat chocolate umbrella.

Spray tree copiously with fake snow, have fifteen minute coughing fit, realise not fake snow but tree saver again, curse, find snow spray, spray tree copiously with snow spray, get lametta, stand on chair and throw lametta artistically at tree, get down from chair, pick lametta up from floor, get on chair, throw lametta artistically at tree, get down from chair, pick up remaining lametta, chuck handfuls at lower branches, get hoover, hoover needles, lametta and invertebrate corpses from lounge, then hoover kitchen, hall and lower stairs, put hoover away, sit on sofa, fall asleep.

Wake to sound of insistent ding-donging of doorbell. Go to answer door to find Sheila Rawlins outside, wishing to deliver the Christmas edition of the parish newsletter, plus procure two pounds annual subscription.

I ask her in and pretend to have left my handbag in the lounge in order that I can lure her into the room to be impressed by my fantastical, magical etc. tree.

‘Wowee!’ says Sheila. ‘Your tree looks stunning!’

‘Really?’ I say. ‘Oh you’re so kind. It’s nothing very exciting really,’ etc., etc.

Donate extra pound to church fund.

 

Extracted from Virtual Strangers by Lynne Barrett-Lee

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Ebook £0.99 Paperback £5.73

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There is no doubt that there are some books you wish didn’t have to read and, by extension that, as a writer, you wish you didn’t need to write, and that’s certainly been true of Bye Mam, I Love You, Sonia Oatley’s heartrending account of the murder of her 15 year old daughter Rebecca Aylward by her then 16 year old former boyfriend, Joshua Davies. It was also a hard book to persuade a publisher to buy, perhaps for the very reasons I mentioned above.

l_oatleyHaving been bought by wonderful (and sensitive) publishers John Blake, however, the readers have proved what we all suspected, that, however harrowing a read, it IS a story that people want to hear about. It took enormous courage for Sonia to revisit the darkest place in her soul, but the readers’ responses have made it clear that it was a journey worth going on. So many people have subsequently reached out to connect with the Oatley family, the image of Becca burning brightly – and no doubt enduringly – in their minds.

Sonia had two goals in deciding to write Bye Mam, I Love You; to tell the truth behind a horrific and inexplicable murder (and, by extension, about her murderer) and, perhaps more importantly, to keep her beloved daughters’s memory alive. Ghostwriting is my job, of course, so any book doing well is always going to give me a buzz. But it’s especially heartening to know that this job – one with many emotional and creative challenges –  has turned out to be doing just that.

Bye Mam, I Love You

Sonia Oatley with Lynne Barrett-Lee

On Saturday, 23 October 2010, Sonia Oatley waved off her 15-year-old daughter, Becca, to meet Joshua Davies, a former boyfriend. Becca’s hope was that the two of them would get back together, but it was not to be. By 3pm, oddly, she stopped answering her mobile. By 7.30 she was officially declared missing. And at 10am the following morning, while Sonia and the family were out searching, came the call that is every parent’s worst nightmare. The police had found the body of a young girl in local woodland: she’d been bludgeoned to death with a rock.

Bye Mam, I Love You is the story of Rebecca Aylward’s murder – a slaying that was described by an incredulous media as having been committed for ‘the price of a breakfast’. But, as soon became clear, this was no crime of passion. Becca’s death had apparently been many months in the planning, by a calculating, cold-blooded killer.

From the immediate arrest of 16-year-old Joshua Davies, to the lengthy investigation and harrowing five week trial that convicted him, this book is both an expression of a mother’s love and her pride in a daughter who had so much to live for, as well as an insight into the mind of a brutal murderer.

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There are ghosting jobs and there are ghosting jobs, and this one has certainly been a bumpy ride.  When we created Dickie’s memoir,  we had a single aim in mind; to create a warm affectionate memoir, and tribute to his former boss. And we did. Or, (allegedly)  maybe we didn’t. In any event, it has been the subject of much media speculation, bitching and general negative yammering, since back in the summer the Sunday Mirror published an excoriating attack on him (always such a joy to be able to use the word ‘excoriating’) for spilling the beans about things they felt he shouldn’t spill the beans about, employing all the tabloidese they could find. It’s since been serialised in the  Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail, inciting the internet trolls to sharpen their purloined porcupine spines and piranha teeth, in order to best lay into him for ‘dredging up’ all sorts of dirt about the Wales’ marriage, and making reference to the presumed paucity of his Palace pension. onduty_s

Actually – and I obviously know of which I speak – Dickie’s book is a respectful, warm and engaging Royal Memoir. Far from seeking to rummage through the Buckingham Palace dustbins, he’s rummaged through a lifetime of  wonderful anecdotes and memories, both from his 12 years at the Palace, and his respected broadcasting career, and of a fractured childhood, which took him from tragedy at three, to boarding school at just six, and then on to a fascinating journey into broadcasting and ultimately to the job offer that so profoundly changed his life.  Most fascinating for me as a ghostwriter is his key role – never before spoken about – in masterminding Diana, Princess of Wales’ funeral. At the time, and perhaps still, it was the biggest global media event ever, and he recounts it with both love and sincerity.

And no, Jimmy Savile DOESN’T feature.

 

A Kindle version is also available.

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Summertime_websiteYes, I’ve donned my stripy ice cream salesman’s jacket, and parked the van up on the common – come one, come all, and get a bank holiday freebie!!! 8 sun-kissed summer shorts, sparkling with surprises, sagacity, sentiment and sandy bottoms plus, for those who like a little frisson with their cornet, the occasional episode of light swooning. And I’m pretty sure there’s a cheese and pickle bridge roll in there somewhere too.  Suffice to say, though there might be more fish in the sea, there’s a good number of fish to get your teeth into here as well. Well, by extension, at least, via a nice man who runs fishing boat trips, plus did I mention there was a cheese and pickle sandwich option, for the veggies? Oh dear. Perhaps, I’ll stop now.

Summertime, Summertime, by Lynne Barrett-Lee

Sun, sea, sand, and a smattering of stressful situations. A teenage girl finds that mums-on-hols take some serious minding, a long-married couple lose each other in Spain, a ride on a bike becomes a journey of discovery and Dr Who takes a walk on the wild side. The trouble with holidays, to quote someone who’s clearly been on several, is that you have to take your baggage along with you…

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