Category: Books And Stories

"Knuckerhole Shaw" in Terra: Dark Mountain Issue 14

17/11/2018

I’ve been published - and not just on the good old interwebs, but in a book!

Red leatherish cover with silver abstract art

The beautiful cover, from an artwork by Jenny Arran - ink on paper (drawn with an axe).

My short story “Knuckerhole Shaw” appears in Terra: Dark Mountain Issue 14.

Several months ago, the Dark Mountain Project put out a call for submissions for their fourteenth issue:

In a restless, globalised culture which dictates that all places be the same and none of us loyal to a heartland, it is sometimes hard to make ourselves at home on Earth. As Martin Shaw writes, to become ‘of a place’ is to trade ‘endless possibility for something specific’. Some of us commit to deepening our investigations of one place, digging in and giving voice to the inhabitants (human and non-human) of the neighbourhoods in which we live. . . For the fourteenth issue we seek work which challenges borders and celebrates transgressions. . .

I’ve enjoyed reading Dark Mountain on and off over the years. With this call out, I thought I had something to offer.

The book comes with a fold out map and artwork

Fame and fortune! It's me!

“Knuckerhole Shaw” is a short piece that draws on the landscape, language and lore of East Sussex. It’s also about eels, because eels are bizarre and amazing. I can’t really remember how or why the two threads converged, but such is the joy of creative writing.

I first drafted the story in late 2014 and submitted it to another publication in 2015 - it was rejected, but with a couple of lines of helpful feedback. Some friends also read through it and gave me pointers (thanks Emily and Dan). Over the next few years, I revisited the piece occasionally, filling out the story and directing it towards a more satisfying conclusion while striving to keep the potential for ambiguity. The Dark Mountain submission deadline prompted me to give it a good polish and call it finished a second time.

Where it starts, where it ends . . .

It was exciting to be accepted for publication. I found it interesting to go through the editing process from a contributor/artist perspective for this piece (content, proofread, layout), guided by Nick Hunt as editor (I'm a fan of his work!) - while travelling a similar path from an editor’s perspective for Queer Out Here.

And the final product is just gorgeous - a beautiful book that I’m really proud to be part of. The written pieces (mainly non-fiction) are interspersed with visual art (mainly photography) and the sympathetic collation guides the reader deftly across continents, oceans and themes. I'm about half way through, and at almost 300 pages I think it will keep me going for a while as I dip in and out.

I’ll end with a short excerpt from my story, to tempt you into purchasing your own copy!

The archivist’s voice weaves a loose net. I try to slip through, thinking instead of what I will do tonight: of a bath in the big tub with the dragon feet; or food: two months to go, and boiled eggs and pies are grit between my teeth, but I must feed. ‘There was always a legend about marsh babies,’ she says, ‘of children found on the Levels wailing for food and shelter until a local family took them in.’ Her sentences tighten around me and I flinch, push the chair back and stand to rub the aching muscles of my back. He barely notices. ‘Of course, it’s more likely the children were born out of wedlock, perhaps even a product of sexual assault,’ she continues, and I start to walk the room, staring at the shelves. ‘The mothers or the girls’ families wanted to get rid of the babies without killing them outright. They might stand a chance, this way.’

He doesn’t believe the story. I feel his eyes on me, his annoyance at my slow, shuffling pace. But he is not quite dangerous, not yet. I smell his wet soil breath as he sighs. ‘Go and look around,’ he tells me. He smells good. I obey.

Two steps down through a broad arch, the museum is a long room, well lit and white-walled. Glass boxes hold single items: rusted, flaking metal tools and spalt, split timbers – isolated, their decay safely contained. Ash-grey lettering on the walls spells out their long-forgotten uses, but one I know on sight, stabbed through. Eelshear, it says. An iron instrument with three or four points, fastened to the end of a long pole, by means of which it is thrust into muddy ponds and ditches for the purpose of catching eels. Under that, an etching of the fork in use, along with a conservation note. European eel (Anguilla anguilla). IUCN Red List classification: Critically endangered.

It is never safe to live with a hunter.

You can buy Terra: Dark Mountain Issue 14 here.

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Review: The Swiss Army Knife Book

7/12/2017

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I’m hardly going to turn down the offer to review a book, am I? So: straight off the bat, The Swiss Army Knife Book: 63 Outdoor Projects by Felix Immler was sent to me for free in exchange for an honest review.

Content note: there is a gif near the end of this post.

The Swiss Army Knife Book, looking good.

Initially, I was meant to get the book before our summer holidays, but it disappeared into the Royal Mail ether. Aimee from The Quarto Group very kindly sent me another copy, which, because we moved house in the meantime, ended up languishing at the post office for a while before we were notified. But finally, finally, I had it in my hot little hands.

My first thought was that this is the kind of book I might give as a gift - perhaps to friends with kids who enjoy spending time outside and might want to get their teeth into a few projects when camping or on a day out in the woods. It’s a hardback, with a tactile, cardboardy cover and a nice bit of utilitarian graphic design on the front.

My second thought was, "Uh, I don’t think my Swiss Army Knife is the right one."

Um, maybe not.

It's fine for cutting your nails, but probably not for building a table.

Fortunately, Dan had one of those super duper practical Swiss Army knives kicking around. You know the ones - they’re too heavy and bulky to carry with you, so they end up in a drawer with some bits of stationery, a few badges and old buttons, a tape measure from a Christmas cracker and the jar of elastic bands you keep saving but never use. (Not this one, unfortunately - read the reviews!)

What even are half these attachments? I hoped the book would shed some light. (Spoilers: it did.)

I leafed through the book, hoping my eye would alight on something I really wanted to try. As well as the 63 projects, there was info about using a knife and about the kinds of natural construction materials available in the woods. The book is packed with lots of colour photos to illustrate each project in its various stages, which should be helpful for anyone planning a bit of bushcraft.

I noticed, though, that it was Felix Immler himself doing most of the work - and the work looked quite complicated to my inexperienced eye. After a couple of casual rounds of page flipping without success, I wondered if I’d made a mistake offering to review this book. I didn’t feel like I could review it properly without trying at least one project, but a lot of of the projects looked a bit too big or time consuming or complicated - and the ones that didn’t seemed a bit . . . stick-y?

A spot of basket weaving.

A stick.

“It’s just a stick!” I exclaimed over the first project - a wooden mallet. Then I turned to the second project - a digging stick. “This is . . . just a stick!” I repeated. Shovel, pickaxe, wood splitter - sticks. Clothes hook? Stick. Table fork and barbecue fork? Sticks. Rolling pin? Definitely a stick.

On the other hand, some projects seemed enormous, like a huge sloping-roof open shelter (first, construct a ladder and a leaf rake…) and a stone oven (“To carry the heavy rocks from the streambed to the camp, I made a hauling mechanism out of two small logs and a sturdy crossbeam”). I wondered, is a pocket knife - even one like Dan’s - really the ideal tool for this kind of thing? If I wanted to make the kind of bench that would require sawing through multiple small saplings or large branches, maybe I'd get a hand saw instead of using a knife.

I treated Dan to a rant. (Lucky Dan!) "Consider the leaf rake," I offered. "Do you really need a leaf rake in the woods?" I’ve never owned a leaf rake, let alone thought about procuring one when camping or picnicking. This is what the author actually says about needing a leaf rake:

Leaves are crucial for all sorts of bushcraft and survival projects, especially for making insulation, padding or sealing in the roofs of shelters. In all of these cases, large quantities of leaves are required. It is therefore worth having a tool that allows you to rake up large quantities of leaves effectively.

OK. "But I can buy a leaf rake for £10," I said, "or borrow one from a neighbour for free, so why spend hours of frustration trying to make one out of twigs and branches and twine?" That odd survivalist undertone of bushcraft doesn’t make much sense with regards to leaf rakes, either. We’ve evolved our tools and tastes for thousands of years until we’ve ended up with what we have now, i.e. a specific rake for leaves. Fine. But if the apocalypse happened tomorrow, I don’t think the majority of people would be specifically concerned about the leaf rake factory ceasing production. If we wanted some leaves off our patch of post-apocalyptic forest floor, or if we wanted to collect them to insulate our dystopic dens, we’d probably go back to simpler solutions, like, I don’t know, using a branch? Or we’d pop into town to loot the abandoned hardware store.

(Just watch me, now I’ve said this in public, I’ll probably become obsessed with leaf rakes. Look out for my next long distance walk, where I’ll be trying to find a good, lightweight leaf rake to strap to my pack.)

Leaf rake. *Shakes fist.*

First, make a ladder . . .

But the main problem I had with the larger projects was this: I don’t have anywhere to try them out. I mean, nicking a couple of sticks from the woods to make a fork is one thing, but building a large stone fireplace (with a wattle-and-daub-style light and heat reflector behind it) is really upping the ante.

To undertake some of these projects you need to find a place with the right materials nearby, a place where you’re allowed to use those materials and where you can spend a decent amount of time. Most of the timber used in these projects is soft, European, forest wood - this is not a book that’s particularly relatable to, say, an Australian environment. Some of the projects use a lot of wood and other natural resources, and I think most people in the UK would be hard-pressed to find a campsite or woodland that would allow them to gather and process that much material. A one night camp is probably not enough time to build a stone oven or a stationary bench - and it’s certainly not enough time to truly appreciate your achievement.

I chose this project, but didn't have quite enough faith in my skills to make some stew to use my ladle on.

Perhaps I wasn't giving this book a fair chance. I went back one last time to find a project for myself.

Despite everything I’ve just said, I can definitely see the appeal of crafting something from scratch - just for fun, or with a practical purpose in mind. I can also see how doing a bit of bushcraft could really change your view of the world around you. Suddenly, all kinds of things can be purposed and repurposed into tools, the woods become a hardware store, the river becomes your electricity supply.

There are some projects in the book that look like they’d make a fun and productive day of work for my hypothetical outdoorsy-family-with-a-couple-of-kids. Imagine making a three legged stool, sitting on it as you construct a bark ladle or whittle a spoon, building a pot holder to cook your soup over your wood fire, then serving the soup using your ladle or eating it with your spoon. Pretty cool! There are a few projects that would be great to do with kids as a way of learning about early humans, too. (I mean, yes, making a stone or wood knife using . . . a knife you already have . . . seems a bit redundant, but it’d still be quite the learning experience.) Plus, some of these projects look like a lot of fun to attempt, even if the likelihood of success is relatively slim - one that springs to mind is creating a water powered rotary spit for your campfire!

Person pulling face and holding pocket knife saw

Trust me, I'm a doctor; this won't hurt a bit. Also, note I am still wearing the Buff from my last review post. (Photo by Dan.)

So, what did I end up choosing? I liked the idea of basket weaving (in the end, this fell into the "too time consuming" and "too hard to get the materials" categories), a resin candle (too finicky) and wood gas stove from tin cans (I’m totally planning to try this as an alternative to the drinks can stove, but I wanted to keep in the spirit of the woods rather than using mainly bought materials). In the end I went for the bark spoon or ladle.

A beautiful, frosty morning in north London. Perfect for stick hunting.

Dan and I went for a walk one crisp, frosty morning (I tweeted about it and my tweet ended up in an article on The Guardian’s website!) with the aim of collecting materials. We found a decent ladle-handle stick without too much trouble. We also spotted some bamboo growing beside a pond in a wood, and I took a bit of that on the off chance that it would make a good string substitute. The bark for the scoop, however, was impossible to source. In the book it looks like Immler uses something like silver birch bark from a fallen or previously cut down tree. The only likely tree we saw was standing happily in someone’s front garden - not a prime target for bark harvesting! In the end, I decided I’d try making the ladle with some greaseproof paper. For form, if not for function.

Bamboo, before.

Bamboo, after.

A week later, I set up in the living room, prepared to make a mess inside to avoid the freezing temperatures outdoors. I split one end of the stick (using saw and knife attachments), peeled strips of bamboo from the stalk (fingers), cut and folded my greaseproof paper (scissors attachment) and assembled a ladle. It took me around a quarter of an hour, and I was pretty pleased - especially with the bamboo ‘string’, which worked quite well. I felt quite a sense of satisfaction!

Splitting the stick, making a mess of the carpet.

Detail: bamboo binding. I neatened it a bit after this.

The book says this spoon is good for getting water out of mountain streams (if your cup, hand and water bottle are all out of order, I suppose). The photos show people happily ladling stew from a pot. I didn’t have a mountain stream or stew to hand, so I attempted to ladle some dish water.

Fail ladle! (Video and gif by Dan.) View on GIPHY.

As you can see, my implement failed absolutely as a ladle - I should have used something other than paper! - but that’s not the fault of the book. Nor is it really the point of the book. The point is to try something new, to create something with your own hands, a pocket knife and a few bits and pieces. And, of course, to spend a bit more time outside. Now, that? I can relate to.

All in all, I stand by my initial impressions. The Swiss Army Knife Book is a good looking, nice feeling book that would make a fine gift for an outdoorsy person or family that might like to try out a few new things. I'm gifting my copy to Dan's school library in the hopes that some intrepid teenager will make something wonderful from it!

I hope you found this review useful. As noted elsewhere on this site, when given products to review, I review honestly and retain authorial control; I am not interested in publishing promoted content.

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Why follow a river?

14/2/2016

4 Comments

During these short, dark, drizzly winter days, I’ve spent a lot of time curled up in front of the fire dreaming and reading about adventures. I’ve become slightly obsessed with riparian adventures - travels down, up, on, beside and in rivers. We’ve got a couple of potential river walks in mind for 2016 and (hopefully) a really big, exciting one in 2017 . . . stay tuned! In the meantime, here are nine things I like about river journeys. (Supported by evidence in the form of books, mostly. But also some TV.)

Murchison River Gorge (cc) Sean Comiskey

1. It's relatively easy

Find a river. Follow it. What could be more simple? Olivia Laing’s To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface is a gentle exploration of the River Ouse in East Sussex, a walk taken one hot summer week. It’s a musing on the meaning of rivers as well as a bit of a history of this area and those who have lived in and loved it, with a particular focus on Virginia Woolf (who lived in the area and drowned in the Ouse). Laing stops along the way to lie in fields of long grass and take dips in the cool water. The UK’s rights of way network means she can follow footpaths for most of the route, including the Ouse Valley Way, a signposted long-distance walk. It’s more a rambling holiday than an exciting adventure. It sounds delightful.

Aerial type shot of hills and winding river leading to sea

Looking across the South Downs and along the River Ouse towards Newhaven (cc) Paul

2. It's difficult

Find a river. Try to follow it through ravines, jungles, deserts, cities, war zones . . . it's not always a walk in the park. Levison Wood walked the length of the Nile (well, most of it) a few years ago. Wood’s 6,850km (4,250mi) trek took him from Rwanda to Egypt via Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan and the Republic of Sudan. The documentary series shows danger on all sides: from humans, wild animals and from the environment itself. He’s robbed on the road, encounters hippos and crocodiles and narrowly avoids being caught in the gunfire of civil unrest. The fighting means he has to abandon part of the walk. In all this high drama, the mundanity of the scene in which Matthew Power, one of Wood’s travelling companions, dies of hyperthermia (heatstroke) is quite shocking. But Wood experiences some incredible sights, stays with hospitable people and visits some fantastically interesting places. Watching his dash into the sea at the end almost makes me want to do it myself. Almost.

Landscape: foreground with river and greenery, background of huge sand dunes

River Nile, Egypt (cc) Michael Gwyther-Jones

3. You can mess about in boats

Are your river fantasies are more Wind in the Willows than Wild West? I like the idea of recreating Three Men in a Boat (as Griff Rhys Jones, Dara O’Briain and Rory McGrath did for TV a few years ago) or hopping aboard a narrowboat and exploring the UK’s waterways, following in the wake of L.T.C. Rolt, who helped revive interest in Britain’s canals in the mid 20th Century. There’s also a huge river network in Europe. Who's to say that taking a steamer up the River Yenisei to spend a miserable season in the Arctic coldness of Dudinka - like Colin Thubron does in In Siberia - can’t be a kind of depressing adventure, too? If your ideal journey involves a bit more physical work yourself, take inspiration from the women who attempted to kayak the Amur River from Mongolia, through Russia to the Pacific Ocean, try paddle-boarding the Thames like Mel and Michelle, kayaking the Murray like Rod Wellington or packrafting down the River Spey like Alastair Humphreys and Andy Ward.

Two kayakers paddle down minor rapids on a clear river between trees

North Umpqua Wild and Scenic River (cc) Bob Wick

4. Discover ancient history

Rivers have been used as trade and transport routes for millennia. In Meander: East to West along a Turkish River, Jeremy Seal travels 500km on foot and in his fold-away canoe. He travels through fields and along highways, he finds traces of cultures, wars and mass migrations winding back thousands of years. At one point, Seal reads the history of a mound of earth and sees “the early people who had settled by the tributary banks 6,000 years ago, the Arzawans and the Hittites, the Phyrgians, the Persians and the Greeks, the Romans and the Byzantines, the Mongols and the Tartars, the Ottomans, their dead sheikh entombed where the past broke surface, and, finally, an agricultural consultant . . . pondering Anatolia’s present troubles.” Later, he moors up beside an island, tying his canoe to the remains of a fluted column rising from the water and is accosted by goats as he eats his lunch among the ruins.

Remains of white fluted columns and a background of jumbled ruins and water

The ruins of Miletus, once a port on the River Meander (cc) Joseph Kranak

5. It's a window onto changing ecologies

Travelling along a river, either upstream or downstream, is a bit like playing detective. Each new day sheds light on the day before: why the salt is creeping upstream, why the fish are abundant (or not) this year, why farmers have stumbled on hard (or easy) times, or why local attempts to clean up the river are facing an uphill battle. Following a river can give you an insight into the into the environmental effects of climate change, intensive (mis)use of water, damming, waste disposal and agriculture. In the four part series The Mekong River with Sue Perkins (and this will come as no surprise to you clever readers) Sue Perkins travels up the Mekong River. The series touches on the history, cultures and environmental impact of river users in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Burma, China and Tibet. Near the end, it’s a shock to be confronted with the construction of the enormous Xayaburi hydroelectric dam, which will block the flow of the river.

Backlit boat on river framed by mountains and clouds

Sunset on the Mekong, Laos (cc) Mario Micklisch

6. It only takes a day

You don't need to save up, quit your job and get on an international flight. Find a short river somewhere near your house and block out a day in your diary to explore. Last year, we spent a day walking and driving the length of the River Cuckmere in East Sussex - starting at the sea and ending at the source (or one of them). On the way we visited chalk carvings, churches and a reservoir and learnt more about the history of the area. The biggest surprise was the source itself: a bright orange, iron-rich spring bubbling out of the ground. There are many of these shorter rivers in the UK (Roger Deakin dabbles in a few over the course of his brilliant book Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey Through Britain - recommended reading).

Panorama in saturated colours of a green valley with river leading to a beach

Cuckmere Haven, East Sussex (cc) Alex Donohue

7. You can cross countries . . . and continents

Africa has the Nile, the Congo and the Niger; South America has the Amazon and the Paraná; Asia has the Mekong. But you have to travel a significant way down the list of the world's longest rivers before getting to one that flows through continental Europe: the Danube. In December 1933, Patrick Leigh Fermor set off to walk across Europe to Istanbul. His journey is documented in three books, published in 1977 (A Time of Gifts), 1986 (Between the Woods and the Water) and - unfinished, posthumously - 2013 (The Broken Road). In December 2012, Nick Hunt set off with apparently very little preparation beyond reading Fermor's first two books and setting up a Couchsurfing account to retrace Fermor's steps and find out what had changed in the intervening eighty years. Hunt's book Walking the Woods and the Water, published in 2012, is an account of that journey, often along the Rhine and the Danube, through Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. It’s not only an interesting account of a very long walk, but a great little introduction to contemporary European politics and cultures.

Night: lit bridge and palace reflected in river

Chain Bridge over the Danube, Budapest (cc) Flavio Spugna

8. You don't have to leave your armchair

There are loads of amazing books, articles, blogs, videos and websites dedicated to river journeys. And there’s Google Maps. Put it in satellite view, tilt it if you want, and take your own trip in a far-flung corner of the globe. I have a bit of an addiction to following Russian rivers - the Lena is one of my favourites and the Ob and its siblings also tickle my fancy - though I’m also partial to desert rivers (or riverbeds) like the capillaries of the Diamantina in Australia and the blue braided threads of rivers like the Rakaia in New Zealand’s South Island that run in almost straight lines from the mountains to the sea. Yeah, I can spend hours on Google Maps. I mean, if rivers aren’t enough for you, you can also check out the moon? Or Mars?

Aerial shot of wide river bed with ribbons of pale blue river

Rakaia River, New Zealand (cc) Geoff Leeming

9. There's no beginning or end

Trace a river back to its tributaries; follow one tributary up a valley to a tarn; climb beside a tiny waterfall to to the top of the mountain, to the edge of the catchment, to the watershed; listen to the squelching of mud and moss underfoot; turn your face to the cool drizzle and the clouds. Who is to say where the river really starts? Then follow it downstream, to the fingers of a delta or a long lagoon, a wide-mouthed estuary; to the point where it stops tasting of snow or starts tasting of salt; to the last town, or the last jetty, or the first breaker. Wherever you decide to start or stop walking, paddling, driving or cycling, I think river journeys are sure to live on in your memory for a long time.

River Tay, Kingoodie (cc) Matthew Jackson

What are your favourite river journey memories? Which river would you most like to explore - in your local area or further afield? Do you have your eyes and heart set on a particular river this year?

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Read in the woods on a rainy afternoon

27/7/2015

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One reason I find microadventures so appealing is that they encourage us to do everyday things in unusual places. I like the idea of taking habitual activities (walking, eating, sleeping) and framing them in new ways (walking the length of a river, eating foraged food, sleeping on top of a hill). By changing the context, these ordinary activities become rather more extraordinary.

After a busy week of travelling, hosting visitors, going to barbecues and organising more travel and social excitement for the rest of the school holidays, Sunday was going to be a day of down time. It helped that the forecast was for heavy rain: perfect weather for curling up with a good book and a bottomless supply of tea.

But technology had other ideas. There were emails to write, blog posts to draft, Twitter feeds to read, photos to edit, cute cat videos to watch . . . I still hadn’t opened my book by lunch time. Something had to be done. It was time for a microadventure!

We made a thermos of tea, packed our new tarp, got wrapped up in our raincoats and headed off to Battle Great Wood. It was tipping down and the carpark was almost empty. Good. The last thing I wanted was a wet dog coming to shake itself off under our tarp! We found a clearing a few metres off one of the paths that wends its way through the wood and hitched the tarp to a pine tree. We weren’t worried about being seen - there are no rules against picnicking in the woods! In no time we had a flying-V set up, a walking pole propping up the middle to give us lots of headroom and the picnic rug spread out underneath to keep us clean and dry. I kicked off my boots and opened my book. Straight away, an inquisitive greyhound sniffed us out, but a whistle from its owners sent it pelting off through the trees. They were the only people we saw in the woods all afternoon.

The rain pecked loudly at the tarp and the wind whooshing in the trees made the weather seem a lot more ferocious than it really was. We, on the other hand, were warm and sheltered. It was exactly the kind of contrast that makes snuggling up by the fire on a squally winter evening so appealing. In fact, it was so distractingly wonderful to be both outside in the rain and perfectly dry that I found it hard to concentrate on my book!

Walking the Woods and the Water: In Patrick Leigh Fermor’s footsteps from the Hook of Holland to the Golden Horn is Nick Hunt’s account of a walking journey through Western Europe. Fermor began his walk from the Netherlands to Istanbul in December 1933; Hunt began his in 2011. I wasn’t far into the book - Hunt was in Germany and it was Christmas. As I read, I reached the point where Hunt sleeps out for the first time, in a small tunnel in a castle wall, hidden beneath a four-star hotel. “The effect was alchemical,” he says. “When I stuck out my head in the light of dawn, having not only survived the night but slept soundly in my hole . . . somehow I belonged in a way that I hadn’t before. Sleeping out produced a sense of enhanced connection with the land, a feeling almost akin to ownership.”

I can relate to that. Walking does this to some extent - and walking the paths of East Sussex over the last few years has both threaded the countryside together in my mind and helped me stitch myself into the landscape. But sleeping in fields and woods, on hills and beaches, seems to open a conduit between self and place so they blur and breathe into each other. Perhaps it is the liminal nature of the experience that creates the possibility of an exchange: slipping between sleep and wakefulness, unsure where dreams begin and end; seeing dusk extend into night, then watching night and dawn creep together across the sky; being cocooned but also startlingly, immediately open to the elements; staying still in a way that’s not quite camping but not quite just resting (so it’s not quite illegal, but it’s also not quite legal).

Under the tarp with our books and cups of tea, boots off, listening to the tapping of rain around us, watching the trees soak into deeper, richer shades of wetness, I felt a stirring of that connectedness. Akin to ownership, yes, but not ownership in the exclusive, proprietorial sense. Rather, it’s a sense of belonging-to-ness that feels like it works in both directions.

The rain did not let up. It was still pouring an hour later, when we got wetter and grottier packing everything away than we did setting it all up. But that’s OK. Actually, it was more than OK, it was fantastic. The whole experience transformed a rainy afternoon of books and tea into something unexpected - something rather more extraordinary.

Rain in the woods from In Which I on Vimeo.

We spent lots of time with trees in July, as per the challenge, but this outing felt the most adventurous!

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Share fifteen first lines from #FLfiction14

12/2/2015

2 Comments

Only two months behind schedule, I’ve completed the final module of a fantastic MOOC - Start Writing Fiction, run by Open University through the FutureLearn platform.

"Notebook & Pen" by Javier M

When I signed up, I envisaged myself after the eight week course somehow transformed into a writing machine, churning out the stories. If I’m honest, I also imagined myself transported to a writers’ retreat, sitting a room with huge bay windows looking out over a landscaped garden to the hills beyond. Spoiler alert: neither of these things happened.

But my main aim was to develop a creative writing habit, or at least get some words down on paper, and in that respect the course was helpful. It focused on creating characters, which is something I struggle with: I’d happily write atmosphere and scenery all day, which is probably why I’m always writing about walking. We were prompted to use a journal to take notes on a daily basis and there were short exercises drawn from these observations each week. I found it invigorating to be forced to create new characters and scenarios to a tight deadline and I’m leaving the course with half a dozen ideas I’d like to develop.

The highlight, for me, was getting feedback and workshopping ideas with fellow students. I loved doing this in my undergrad years and I have really missed it. There were three points in the course for structured feedback, when each of us submitted a scene, character sketch or story we’d created and then gave feedback on other pieces. The feedback was based on specific questions and there were helpful feedback guidelines for first timers. It’s always interesting to see your writing through new eyes and to find out where your reviewers agree and disagree. I also enjoyed giving feedback, but there you go - I am an editor!

I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the course so much if my partner hadn’t been doing it, too. We were able to discuss things verbally instead of typing up all our responses, we nudged each other into using our journals more, we encouraged each other when we hit stumbling blocks and of course we got to give each other extra feedback. If you’re planning on doing a MOOC, I would really recommend doing it alongside someone else if you can.

Black and white photo of a desk and typewriter

"Great minds only need simple tools" by Antti Kyllönen. (It's not mine. I'm not cool enough to own or use a typewriter.)

While none of the pieces I wrote are ready to go out into the world, I thought I’d share fifteen first lines pulled from eight weeks of exercises and arranged in no particular order.

I notice her voice: she sounds mushy, the way old men sound mushy, as though she’s moving her mouth around a spoonful of memory porridge.
Mrs Baxter, the village shopkeeper and postmistress, was a busybody.
The rope of their conversation is fraying.
Fans beat furiously at the dampness, a metallic hum you can block from your ears but not from the base of your skull.
She holds her knife like a pencil, scribbling furiously into her eggs and toast.
Ze remembers staring at a hole in the wrangled tin, where a nail or screw had once been, where the rusty weeds hung down.
Emma said that the best way to a man’s stomach was through his navel, though even she had to admit that sometimes opening up the whole front was easier and more effective.
I spent the morning inside, sewing, as the weather was atrocious.
She walks beside me, sometimes, and reminds me how to see that of God in everyone.
Dorothy had set herself three tasks that day.
They talk like a weekend newspaper, like a dinner dance, stepping with friendly formality from one subject to the next.
The ridge road tipped downhill and became a suburban street, lined with pebbledash houses.
I needn’t have run for the bus.
Adam remembered outside with skin that thrilled at the smack of rain, a mouth that savoured salt in the heavy heat of summer and lungs that sang when the gates were finally pushed back.
There are memories that cut Gally’s life into now and before.

Have you done any good MOOCs or online/free writing courses? Please, tell me more . . .

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Share the love: Five good books about walking

2/12/2014

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A couple of months ago on Book Riot, Jeremy Anderberg published “7 Books (and One to Avoid) for the Avid Hiker”. They all sound interesting, and I've ordered some from the libary, but they’re USA-centric (6 of the 8 set in the USA), all by men (except the “one to avoid” - awkward) and mainly focused on specific journeys. So, here I am supplementing Anderberg’s list - which isn't meant to be definitive - with five more good books about walking.

1. Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Rebecca Solnit (2000)

What’s it about? It does what it says on the tin. It starts with the physiology of walking, an investigation of why humans started walking, then wanders through time over diverse fields including philosophy, shopping, poetry, religion and spirituality, landscaping and gardens, tourism, geography, politics, novels, pop culture, law, feminism, public space and urban design. It moves between continents, too, though there’s a definite bias towards the northern hemisphere.

Why is it so good? Solnit highlights that is a history, not the history: she tries to acknowledge the book's limitations, omissions and biases. Rather than being a straight-up chronological history, it's more a series of lyrical essays. Academic analysis is interspersed with personal accounts of walks (taken solo or with friends) and occasional flights of imagination are thrown in. I like it because, like a good walk, it takes you to new places, and asks you to look at familiar things in a different light.

Any cons? I would like to hear more non-Western perspectives, and some of the chapters are a little thinner on ideas and research than others. Even those chapters, though, seem to open up the potential of walking and thinking about walking, rather than shutting it down with a definitive “this is how it is, because I am an expert and I say it is so”. Another con, which you can take as read in almost any contemporary writing about walking, are the instances of casual fatphobia and hand-wringing about “the obesity epidemic” - boring.

2. Map Addict: A Tale of Obsession, Fudge and the Ordnance Survey

Mike Parker (2010)

What’s it about? Strictly speaking, as the title suggests, this is a book about maps rather than walking. But since this is my list, I have decided there is enough walking in there to qualify. This is a humorous non-fiction book - slightly in the vein of Bill Bryson, to give you an idea of tone. It is a bit of a whirlwind of subjects, but it pulls together to give a fun, biased and incomplete investigation of cartography, borders, land use and land access (including walking), politics and language. It’s set mainly, but not exclusively, in the British Isles - but it doesn’t claim to be anything other than very British.

Why is it so good? How can you not like someone who used to shoplift maps in their misspent youth? Parker is so obsessed with Ordnance Survey maps that I’m sure even the most map-phobic person couldn’t help but feel a spark of enthusiasm! He’s got a good eye for the off-beat (like visiting the most boring OS gridsquare), though many of the mainstays of mapping and walking are in there too (Wainwright, Phyllis Pearsall of the London A-Z fame, the Ramblers). Maps are a huge part of my experience of moving through and understanding the world, so it’s great to read something light-hearted while also learning a bit more about why the world of mapping (and, by extension, walking) is the way it is.

Any cons? Sometimes Parker’s exceptionally bouncy approach does make things pass in a bit of a whirl - you will find a more balanced, exceptionally researched but infinitely drier account of the OS in Rachel Hewitt’s Map of a Nation. Also a con in a list of books about walking is that there isn’t more walking it - though to be fair, Parker has written a book about walking and footpaths (The Wild Rover), it’s just that this one’s more fun.

3. The Ways of the Bushwalker: On Foot in Australia

Dr Melissa Harper (2007)

What’s it about? A history of bushwalking, which Harper defines as walking in the bush for pleasure. This is an interesting companion book to Wanderlust, as it covers a few similar areas but with an Australian focus. There are discussions of politics, fashion, gender, four-wheel driving, ecology, aesthetics, literature and colonisation. Because it has a much narrower scope than Wanderlust, it is able to zoom in on more details and quirky bits of Australian history. It's something of a cultural history through the lens of walking.

Why is it so good? There are lots of histories and philosophical examinations of walking, but there’s hardly anything specific to Australia. This book opened my eyes to pieces of Australian history I’d known nothing about, and it prompted me to start thinking more deeply about the problematic concept of “wilderness” - specifically, how the kinds of ideas and ideals embedded in the National Park movement can be inherently, unconsciously racist and also used for explicitly anti-Indigenous Australian means (watch Noel Pearson’s speech for more on that). I also loved the chapter on people who aimed to experience the bush physically, almost erotically, especially through naked walking.

Any cons? While there are discussions of land rights, Harper argues her “walking in the bush for pleasure” definition means that bushwalking (a term coined in the 1920s) excludes the long history of Indigenous Australians walking in the bush. I think there could have been another chapter dedicated to Aboriginal history, e.g. walking Songlines (though research in that area has also been problematic).

4. Two Degrees West: A Walk Along England’s Meridian

Nicholas Crane (1997)

What’s it about? Nick Crane (of BBC’s Coast fame) walks a straight line through England from Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland to the south coast near Swanage in Dorset. Of course, it’s not completely straight, but his aim is to veer no more than 1km each side of the prime meridian - not even for food and shelter. His other aim is to do it all on foot. (Spoilers: he achieves the former, and from memory there are only two exceptions to the latter - he crosses a reservoir by boat and some MOD land in military transport).

Why is it so good? This book is sometimes subtitled “An English journey”. I prefer the subtitle I’ve cited, but I can see why this one exists: in walking a straight line, rather than following established paths, natural landmarks, roads and so on, Crane is able to observe an almost randomly selected cross-section of English culture, people, landscapes, towns, agriculture and industry. It’s a cultural examination masquerading as travel writing. I like the inclusion of urban landscape and the bit where he sleeps in a culvert under a motorway.

Any cons? Crane documents his nervousness about trespassing, practicing his super-fast “pitch” in case anyone stops him. Nobody does. I wonder how anyone who wasn’t a moderately respectable-looking middle aged white man would have fared? I wonder if it would still be possible to do this walk almost 20 years later? I love the idea of this kind of walk (there are shades of Richard Long's art), but I wish there were more done by people who haven’t traditionally been allowed such freedom of movement.

5. Enchanted Glass

Diana Wynne Jones (2010)

What’s it about? This is a children’s fantasy book, about magic and family and many of the things you might expect from Diana Wynne Jones (she wrote Howl’s Moving Castle, which is one of my favourites of hers alongside The Homeward Bounders and The Spellcoats (from the Dalemark Quartet)). Enchanted Glass is about a young, orphaned boy (Aidan) and a featherbrained male academic who wind up living together in Melston House, a fictional house near the fictional town of Melston in England. The house comes with a “field of care” - like a parish surrounding a church, only one which must be magically maintained by the inheritor of the house. Oh, and Aidan is being pursued by a mysterious, hostile force...

Why is it so good? The field of care is tied very strongly to physical boundaries, which must be physically seen to, with obstacles removed. The magic here draws on the tradition of beating the bounds. I love this concept because it ties into a way of seeing and being in the world that I want to explore through reading and writing - the dual ideas that the landscape is a living entity that has a kind of ownership on the people living there and the idea of magic being done through physical movement. Plus, it’s a fun tale!

Any cons? If you’re after books that are only about walking, this isn’t one. Also, in terms of fiction, it would have been nice to have some more female characters. Oh, and, here’s a spoiler: I was disappointed when the main characters ended up being related by blood - it wasn’t necessary and gave off a "chosen families aren’t real families" vibe.

If you can suggest some excellent books about walking - histories, fictions or travel accounts, especially by non-white people and/or set in Asia, Africa, South America or Eastern Europe - I’d be delighted to read them!

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Describe a book I want to read

28/10/2014

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"Sky Reflect Discovery Field" photo by JB Banks

Many of my favourite books float somewhere in the intersecting areas of a huge Venn diagram comprising YA fantasy, dystopias, post-apocalyptic worlds, old-school feminist sci fi, mythology and contemporary spec fic. I've read a lot of it, but I want to read more!

If you’re an author, please feel free to take these three tips and write me an amazing story. If you're a reader, feel free to leave me a recommendation in the comments.

1. Give me time

"Palimpsest" photo by Alice

I once read an argument (which now seems rather dubious, probably because I've hideously over-simplified it in my memory), that fantasy fiction can be divided into two kinds: that which uses time as its structuring theme, with characters and stories repeating and echoing up through an ocean of time, between eras but in the same location; and that which has space at its core, with characters journeying across/between worlds and through portals to arrive at other places or realms.

This (unlikely and/or misremembered) hypothesis stuck with me because my favourite stories definitely skew towards the former. I love the idea that time is not linear, but something more like an endless sheet of cloth, draping in folds across itself, each fold rubbing against the next, sometimes wearing away the layer beneath, sometimes leaving a mark, and always influencing what is to come. Time is a palimpsest.

That’s what I want to read: a story that is many stories, sometimes distinct, sometimes indistinguishable, repeating and evolving – like listening to several versions of a piece of music at once, interpreted by different generations of musicians.

2. Be practical

"Crochet blanket" by Emma Jane Hogbin Westby

I like magic, but I read enough sword and sorcery as a teenager to have got it out of my system. I don’t (usually) want to read about magic that is “gifted” to the (un)fortunate few. I want to read about the magic of everyday, magic that is practiced, refined, explored, tinkered with, evolved, corrupted.

I’m not saying a book can’t have a university of magic (tell me about interdepartmental politics and the pressures that acamages face trying to juggle research, publication and teaching) or individuals who teach/learn their magic within a complicated master/apprentice power dynamic (tell me about the psychology of codependency and how the rest of the world reads their relationship).

But what I really want to read about is the magic of the masses: the magic that is hummed to the wind, grown on a balcony, kneaded and baked, danced in a round, played as a sport, walked through city streets, painted on skin or chalked on pavements, spun, woven, sewn or sculpted. I like magic that is, literally, an art or craft.

3. Take me away

"Solar flower" photo by Trey Ratcliff

The great thing about fiction is that the writer gets to invent the world. They get to say what’s important. They get to choose which characters, stories and places to focus on. This especially applies in spec fic, fantasy or sci-fi.

If a book's protagonist ticks the majority of these boxes: male, white, cisgender, straight, able-bodied, neurotypical and/or human, there had better be a very good reason for that or I will be bored, bored, bored. Likewise, if the world or universe of the book obliviously replicates - without critiquing - the same hierarchies as lots of high fantasy (kingdoms, feudal societies) or the same cultural structures as the Western mainstream (capitalism, racism, sexism), it’s already lost a few points in my rating. That’s not to say these stories can’t be good, but there are so many other stories like them and they represent such a tiny sliver of what human beings are capable of imagining.

I don’t pick up a fantasy book to read about what I know, I read it to learn something fresh. Surprise me.

What are you reading at the moment? What do you love about it? How would you improve it? I feel like gossiping about books in the comments. . .

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"Knuckerhole Shaw" in Terra: Dark Mountain Issue 14

Review: The Swiss Army Knife Book

Why follow a river?

1. It's relatively easy

2. It's difficult

3. You can mess about in boats

4. Discover ancient history

5. It's a window onto changing ecologies

6. It only takes a day

7. You can cross countries . . . and continents

8. You don't have to leave your armchair

9. There's no beginning or end

Read in the woods on a rainy afternoon

Share fifteen first lines from #FLfiction14

Share the love: Five good books about walking

1. Wanderlust: A History of Walking

2. Map Addict: A Tale of Obsession, Fudge and the Ordnance Survey

3. The Ways of the Bushwalker: On Foot in Australia

4. Two Degrees West: A Walk Along England’s Meridian

5. Enchanted Glass

Describe a book I want to read

1. Give me time

2. Be practical

3. Take me away

In which I

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