Back home to a crisis of identity... or two

And I'm home from an amazing 'research' trip round South America. And it was nice while it lasted! Oh well. 


But I have a notebook full of illegibly scribbled ideas for me to decipher! Sitting back down at the laptop to write was very strange. I'd forgotten how to do the simplest thing... like access Twitter. So much for neural pathways. I now have the attention span of a cat with ADHD, but I'm forcing myself to sit back down and type words one after another until I get my writing mojo back and can be creative again without feeling drawn away to make coffee, empty the dishwasher, check twitter... But it really is a joy to be home and getting stuck into some projects I'd put on hold before leaving the country last September.


 I've also finally had a chance to read through my short stories that have appeared in women's magazines while I've been away. On the whole it is delightful to see the latest batch in print. And I am slightly bemused and cheered by the some of the artwork crafted to go alongside the pieces... funny seeing someone else's interpretation of the characters. One mag, though, has changed the name of one of my characters... obviously, the happens all the time and in itself is no problem at all... except that they only changed the name halfway through the piece. Hilariously, the main characters husband starts as one person and ends as a completely different one. I was slightly concerned readers would think it was MY error. But more troubling was that they would try to factor it into the plot and think that the main character had two men on the go... And it's definitely not that kind of magazine. But hopefully it brightened up someone's day!


Today I've been working on a piece for The Writers and Artists Competition 2012 to flex my creaking creative muscles. The theme is 'identity' which sparked some ideas... I spent a lot of the day researching arson, rats, water voles and bad taxidermy. I'm so glad my work adds so much richness and useful stuff to society... hmmm.

Booked Up: the joys of book swapping around South American hostels.

It begins as a mild gnawing panic that grows as your fingers flick quickly - counting the pages remaining of your current book. It's your last one. You're in a bus terminal in Uruguay with a 22 hour journey ahead of you.


I've become a junky - I need to know, as we travel, where my next bookshelf hit will come from. I need at least one book stashed in my backpack incase I can't get to the next supply in time. 


Before going travelling I thought of myself as a 'slow reader'. It took me, for example,three months to finish Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas' loving every slowly digested sentence. But outside the rhythm of my usual life I'm gobbling down a book every few days.


Delightfully, most hostels have a bookswap shelf. Occasionally dusty, yellowing titles in a frustration of German, Swedish and Spanish. But often flourishing with a gorgeously eclectic selection to choose from. And always at least one book I've always wanted to read and not got round to or something I would normally not touch with a barge pole. Reading, at home, is a precious investment of my 'slow readers' time not to be wasted on rivolous things (I'm only going to live so long and there's too many amazing books to squander on badly written ones) But travelling, with my newfound speed-read skills I've got freedom to read anything on offer. Even the trashy stuff...


I've swapped my way through hostels in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecaudor, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil. I sucked up my crime fiction snobbery and thoroughly enjoyed a Kathy Reichs and developed a girl crush on Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta. I finally got round to reading David Nicholls´ ´One Day´ and Marquez ´One Hundred Years of Solitude´. Both brilliant. the list goes on....


There is a good earthliness about book swapping. And, better to give than recieve,  there´s something wholesome about leaving a cracker behind you. I don´t know what writerly stance to take on this circulation of a book for free. As someone who shuns illegal downloading (morally... and also because I´m afraid of the internet police) is this a tiny bit similar? But no... actually if it was some book I´d written, I think I would be pleased. My story, travelling around the world like a little stowaway, languishing in hostels until jumping the next appropriate backpack out of there. 


Right. Off to the beach with ´The Talented Mr Ripley´. A Caipirihna and some casual psychopathy; what a perfect way to conclude our travels. Home in just a few days... when my snail pace reading will surely resume.

Kindled Spirit

I'm coming round to it... Before we left for South America husband fulfilled his threat and bought a Kindle. I rolled my eyes and muttered something about making himself a target as a robbable gringo in a third world country and about not being able to share books nicely.
"But there 'll be extra room in my rucksack..." He raised his eyebrows at the pile of books I'd not managed to squeeze into my pack. 
 I nodded grudgingly and insisted he download South America on a Shoestring. I already had a paper copy scribbled in post-it noted and corners folded and I was sort of glad to not have to share it. It would only have caused squabbles. 


But now, having spent a couple of months with Kenny Kindle it hurts a bit to admit it but he is pretty good. He's not amazing to read from, no better than normal paper and lacks the subtleties of books that I love. But slowly... slowly... I´m seeing a few benefits. When the Manbooker was announced I mentioned in passing how I would love to read the winning novel when I got home. Five minutes later Kenny slipped himself into my unsuspecting hands with Julian Barnes´s ´The Sense of an Ending´ flashing innocently up at me. Apt. I thought, as I read warming to the plastic casing in my hands and the nonchalant page turns with their mildly satisfying thumb click.


And, wonderfully, I was able to download ´Quickies: Short Stories for Adults´ produced by the brilliant collective #Flashtag featuring some of my most favourite writers. Had I not been travelling I would have gone to the book launch to hear readings back in September. So being able to read the book was fab. In this saucy tongue-in-cheek... or elsewhere... collection of flash fictions the writers have created saucepot stories that they probably wouldn´t want their nans to read. They´re fabulously varied. Think Anais Nin-Jilly Cooper fusions with the smutty pages that fall open in public library books... My favourite tales are David Gaffney`s ´What Happened to the Girl´ and Kim McGowan´s ´Tuffnell´s Toffees´. Definitely a book to buy in whatever format tickles your fancy. 


The only sad thing, and I know I´m harping on a bit, is that in its digital format I can`t book swap it in a hostal for someone to find. I like to think who it might have been. A foreign student wanting to learn the finer points of english usage tempted in by the seeming innocence of the short stories, or a kid on a gap year who thought they knew it all... 


So, yes. I admit it. Kenny is growing in my estimations. and I´m using his clever brainbox to download relevant books for each country I end up in. Rusty Young´s ´Marching Powder´ for Bolivia, `Don´t Sleep there are Snakes´and ´Lost City of Z´ for Brazil, some Mario Vargas Llosa for Peru... and while I sit reading them, in the corner of my eye I see husband twiddling his thumbs. His expression as he glances longingly at Kenny is somewhere between annoyance and vindication.

South America: Argentina and Chile.

I'm taking four months out to travel around South America. This, honestly, is purely for story researching purposes...

I won't go on about it, I promise. Having read some vomit inducing blogs about spiritual journeys whinging about how hard travelling is and transversely some amazingly articulate and fascinating travel blogs ( you know who you are...) I've decided I can compete with neither. So I've simply broken the first month away into a series of concise statistics as follows.

• Countries travelled through: 2. Argentina and Chile.

• Baby-sized Argentinian steaks eaten: 11

• Hours spent on buses: 64

• Hours spent asleep on buses: 10

• Books read: 5

• Spanish speaking fails: Countless. Actually, I quite enjoy muddling through - it speeds up learning. However, one waitress in San Telmo, Buenos Aires seemed to relish asking questions we didn't stand a chance of grasping, then bringing a variety of unasked for extras we were sure we'd never consented to. On one occasion "Dos cafe con leches, por favor..." yeilded three croissants, one orange juice, one milky coffee, one espresso, a cheese and tomato sandwich and what can only be described as a smirk from our waitress.  

• Churches / cathedrals / graveyards visited: 7. Anyone else inherit this tic from childhood family holidays? From being dragged around places of foreign ceremony and death as a child now I can't stop myself. The favourite so far? Cementeria Recoleta in Buenos Aires. Visitors wander between the mighty tombs for hours looking for Evita's grave which turns out to be as underwhelming as the wooden chalice chosen by Indiana  in Raiders of the Lost Arc. The cemetry is an incredible place, arranged in rows and blocks much like the city it is set in. Each sarcophagos has windows through which you can peep morbidly at the coffins stacked and draped with lace cloths inside. Cats stroll disarmingly between these blocks, rubbing up against the enormous weeping angels, horses, ships and urns.

• Narrowly avoided volcano eruptions: 1. passing over the Andes on the Argentina-Chile border the eruption from the Caulle geofield is still smoking. Whole towns including Bariloche, Valdivia and Puerto Montt are caked in thick ash from the eruption in June. In some places entire forests are submerged in the stuff. The dust sticks in your throat and resettles just minutes after being wiped from surfaces.  My first reaction was sympathy for the areas affected. Although no one died in the eruption, it caused massive disruption. Then a Chilean friend pointed out that the ash will make the ground incredibly fertile in a few years time. So actually, good stuff.

• Stories written: None. There is too much to see and experience. I'm struggling to focus on any one close idea. But I'm sucking it all up. Hopefully there will be lots that will prove fertile when the dust settles. 

...One Giant Leap...

Recently, I took up a challenge to write a story in response to the work of Polish Science Fiction writer Stanislaw Lem. This was for an anthology, 'Lemistry', celebrating his work and featuring new translations of his stories, alongside other established writers responding to his work.

I have read an embarrassingly tiny amount of Sci Fi, maybe residually due to the very acid opinion of a bookshop colleague years ago referring to the science fiction section as 'sweaty books for boys'. I resented this critique of an entire genre, but a reluctance to delve in remained. I thought Sci Fi required knowledge of technological or scientific stuff. I thought to read, or indeed write, science fiction you'd need to know all the 'rules'. But as I read Lem's work I realised my preconceptions couldn't be further from the truth. There are so many books and films that came to mind that seem to have been inspired by him. And as a writer responding to his work, I could go literally anywhere and put anyone (human, robot or alien) there, too.

I also realised through the process how challenging it is to write well in this genre. There is much that needs explaining in creating unknown complete worlds and it requires discernment as to how much you can leave out and what to include without being heavy handed or breaking the old show don't tell. I don't think I got everything right in my story 'Traces Remain', but I had a really good go at it. And I am immensely grateful to the editor Ra Page for his astute and brilliant guidance. I would be mortified if people read my early malformed drafts. And although there are probably aspects in the final cut that Sci Fi aficionados may roll their eyes at, I am pleased with the end result. Forgive me - it was a little bit like learning to write all over again.

I'm really excited to read what other contributors have done with Lem's inspiration. And thrilled to be appearing in an anthology that features brilliant well established writers. For more information about the project and to pre order copies of Lemistry see Commapress

'Keeping Mum...' with Woman's Weekly

Woman's Weekly 9th August 2011

I'm chuffed to bits to see my first story in Woman's Weekly. I sent my story 'Keeping Mum at No. 32' not sure whether it would be right for them and was delighted when they liked and accepted it. It seems they are absolutely true to their word that they're looking for edgier or more experimental stories. A pleasure to write and delightful to see it in print. 

Review of Dogs Chase Cars by Mark Porter

   ©  Eric Uhlich 2011

I've been doing a spot of reviewing for the fabulous Lancashire Writing Hub. Read my review of Mark Porter's fantastic novel Dogs Chase Cars on the LWH website here. I first heard an extract of the book at Word Soup in Preston, where Mark gave a reading. It was one of those readings where I would have happily sat and listened indefinitely. More about Mark Porter's novel, and other projects, here.