Sisters at Christmastime.

  These days I am thinking a lot about my sister. In the subconscious fashion common the writers,  

       I have discovered in recent years that I have drawn on elements of  and aspects of most members of my family inn my fiction (See ‘The Romancer' HERE…). 
     That is, except for my sister. I am not sure why. 
     Sisters grow up in the same background in the same physical and psychological environment. Significantly they share a uniquely derived  gender identity,. But that does not mean they are the same kind of person. It merely makes a refinement of the differences between you – making them more ambiguous, more opaque,

I think we remember our sisters more deeply  than other siblings. Maybe this  relationship is bitten more deeply with love and guilt and perhaps framed with shared involuntary joys and failures.

According to social; anthropologist Margaret Mead, ‘Sister is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship.’

I trailed behind my own sister. She was always impossibly talented and superior, like our mother with her fine dark eyes and bright hair the colour of a new penny. My own mousy curls could, I knew, never compete. The difference was more deeply scored when I was told by one teacher after another that if I was half as good as my sister I’d be all right.   I learned early that she was impossible to emulate. It was much easier to fail in her shadow.

I remember these crowded afternoons in a small front room, the Dansette clicking and purring. And a crowd of girls  dancing together, strutting their stuff, chopping arms, jutting feet, learning the moves, ready for Saturday. My sister was popular, a leader among them.   And could could she move!  Syncopating steps in her green  five inch heels as she danced the others into the floor.

When we were young wives she was generous to a fault. My new husband and I, broke after our wedding, lived for some months in her spare bedroom. On our first night there our  narrow Edwardian wardrobe - stuffed over-full with our clothes – collapsed. The great clatter was followed by a deep silence while all in the house held their breath,imaginations reeling. And then, nothing spoiled,  we all went back to sleep.

  Hers was a pretty, brand new house: dainty wallpaper and cushions; tea on the table just on six: home baked pies and cakes. I would watch her as she  put on her lipstick, combed her hair and set the table: a perfect wife, waiting for her man.

For me - messy. untidy, and disorganised -  failure to emulate was the only welcome option.

 And then there were the thing about children – one, two, three perfect babies. She was so good at this process that the doctor – a handsome man with neat manicured nails – asked the midwife to be called to witness what looked like a perfect event. The handsome doctor turned up, his  pyjamas hidden under his elegant top coat. He witnessed a perfectly managed birth – a relief for any man I would think.

And now today a this Christmas time  I am thinking about my sister and at last agreeing with the very wise Margaret Mead. Now we are both grown this has become the strongest relationship, stronger than it has ever been.

I'm looking forward to seeing her soon.

THE GIFT OF YOUR CHRISTMAS REVIEW ON AMAZON

I have read thousands of books in my long time – always choosing books I thought I might like. Yet for many years  not once did I write to the author and tell them how much I had enjoyed it and why.

Now, as a published author myself, I have begun to realise how very significant were the letters I received through  the years from interested and interesting readers. And this has been even more important to me when my novels have gone into eBook form and people have been reading them on Kindle.

This is  especially so now with my recent books, when I have missed the push  of a big publisher behind me.. Reader-response is  crucial these days to provides evidence of response.on the ubiquitous Amazon machine.

So now I am even more grateful when my readers put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard to make positive comments about my novels either directly to me or  on the Amazon site. Such comments are very significant to me and are much more rigorously surveyed than any wider press review.

I am practising what I preach! These days I am much more assiduous about writing comments on books I have read and enjoyed.

How, then, can we spread this very welcome practice?

My impression is that there are lots more people out there who would like to spread the word about books they have enjoyed in Kindle or paperback. However some have told me they are intimidated by the term  review  which as about it the atmosphere of Guardian or Telegraph with their iconic, experienced and sometimes self-consciously literary  reviewers.

I prefer to call the pieces I write about other writers' books  - both on my blog and on the Amazon book pages -  comments or commentaries, . It seems to me that these are much less portentous and accessible labels. Anyone can make an informed comment.

HERE’S HOW!

COMMENTARIES- HOW TO SET ABOUT THEM

Draft your commentary in a plain Word file, so you can write it freely, and then edit it to say precisely what you want.  Then (see below***) you can copy and paste it onto the Amazon site.

The Commentary

1.      Decide how many stars you would like to give it, from 1-5.  I would only bother to award stars if you judge it worth four or five stars. Any less rather wastes the time you spend writing the commentary.

2.      Only comment if you have real grounds to like and recommend the book.

3.      Give it some kind of brief title. A Great Read or Enjoyable WW2 Story etc etc

On your Word-draft put down three things:

-         Main theme or thrust of the book in terms of characters and or narrative.

-         Most enjoyable element for you as a reader. How does it link to your other reading? Or your own experience?

-         Why you might recommend it to other readers.

Remember, you can keep all this quite short if you want to. Or you can expend it into a more detailed commentary. It’s up to you.

If you are very new to commenting and want to have a go - here are some tips if you would like to go on the Amazon Site and comment and any book you have enjoyed.  

1. ·        Find the book by title on Amazon
2. ·        Click on the REVIEW button beside the title
3. ·        You will then see a layout of the current reviews
4. ·        You could leaf through these reviews to see what others have said about your chosen book. Some will be twenty lines long, some will be four or five lines. Do not be intimidated! The shorter pithier comments  ones can be just as valuable as longer  ones.
5. ·        Click on the button that says hers  CREATE YOUR OWN REVIEW.
6. ·        It asks you award the book your Star rating.  (See my note above about the Star issue)
7. ·        There is a space below the stars for you to WRITE YOUR REVIEW.
8. ·        If you have followed my advice you will have drafted your comment first on a plain Word file. ***
9. ·         Now COPY your comment and PASTE it into the space beneath your star rating. This space will grow depending on the length of the comment.
10. ·        Now press ‘SUBMIT’ and you will have published your commentary to the world and warmed the writer’s heart.

If you click HERE you will see some comments on my booksthat have warmed my own heart. 

Believe me! More than socks or sweets, chocolates or wine, a genuine comment on Amazon will be a wonderful Christmas gift for a writer whose work you have enjoyed.

From me to you - 

To Celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas

Here is a Christmas Present for the first twelve readers who comment on any one of my novels during the Christmas period. If you send me the link to your comment and your address I will send you a signed copy of the first edition of my memoir The Romancer.

The Modern Novelist, King George and a family Christmas

Like many writers I have been obsessed with story from  my earliest.days. Now this week, with the rush of bright goods in the shops and flood of Christmas films on TV, it is clear to me that even in 2014, in a busy novelist's life,  Christmas is coming.

Grandma and Grandad

More stories about them HERE

in my memoir The Romencer 

And today into my head, almost unbidden, drums  a rhyming song that my Grandma used to sing to us at Christmas time. This song has been bedded in there in my mind since before I could talk. Its powerful narrative addresses as much murder vengeance, healing,and redemption as would suit any modern novel. Its clear story arc and a powerful use of dialogue are a model for any modern novelist.

In the many years since I first learned the song at my Grandmother’’s knee - with my writer-researcher head on -  I have discovered that this song-story has been handed down  from the Middle Ages, voice to voice, through pure oral tradition in the form of a Mummer’s Play. It has only been latterly written down.

There are many versions of the tale, some of which include Father Christmas as a narrator alongside Saint George, a dragon and  Turkish knights as the enemy. The good doctor is always there to raise the dead with his little bottle of pills or potions. And Jack is often there as the victim to be raised from the dead. The versions vary from region to region but in essence they are  deeply similar. 

Of course I prefer the song-story I first heard at my grandmother's knee.

Here is our family version of the song-story, word for word as I remember it. 

Our version seems to start in the middle

…

In steps King George

‘King George is my name.

With sword and pistol by my side

I hope to win the game.’

‘The Game, sir?’

‘The Game sir!’

‘Take your sword and try sir!’

‘My sword sir?’

‘Your sword sir.’

‘Oh dear oh dear what have I done?

I’ve killed my father’s only son.’

‘Send for the doctor!’

‘Send for the doctor!’

In come good old Doctor Brown

The best old doctor in the town.

‘What can you cure?’

‘A dead man to be sure.

I have a little bottle in my inside pocket

that goes Tick Tack! Rise up dead Jack!’

‘Oh my brother’s come alive again we’ll never fight no more

We’ll be the greatest brothers than we ever were before.

So with a pocket full of money and a barrelful of beer

We wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.'

Source; Wetherill family oral tradition

See one the many other versions HERE  

If you want to read more about her HERE is an extract from my Memoir The Romancer

 AND A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL THOS WONDERFUL READERS AND WRITERS WHO FROM TIME TO TIME  GRACE THIS PAGE WITH THEIR PRESENCE. WXXX

Happy Christmas Dear Friends.

A Heartfelt Happy Christmas Season to all the lovely people -both readers and writers - join me time and again at Life Twice Tasted time and to share with me the oddities that obsessions  that preoccupy my butterfly mind. You are my delight.

Here at LifeTwiceTasted Manor Christmas has arrived 

and at last the tree is up

My good intention for 2014  is

is to shrug off my delight with the idiosyncrasies of grammar. It does tend to split the reading and writing world. Although (as it's still 2013) I am wondering about the subtle magic of prolepsis and litotes ...

Thinking about  2014 I heard this good saying on  - of all things - an American cop-show: 

'If you always do what you've always done you always get what you always did.' 
Makes sense to me. 
So it looks as though 2014 will be a year of change in my life. 

Goody! 

Best wishes for a brilliantly written and well-read year in 2014

Love Wendy

Christmas Always Makes Me Nervous

Hooray! The tree is up. I’d done my holly and ivy pagan decoration (see below) but had to wait for the arrival of the very special Boy Who Likes Chocolate (from univ. via London ) to tackle the tree. He’s been Involved with The Tree for the last nineteen years. For the last five years he has been In Charge of The Tree. As you see, it is room height and features his signature red/gold/white bands.

Christmas always makes me nervous: the urgent need to Enjoy Oneself; the worry about whether the present will work for this or that loved one; the need for the food to be extra special, the house beautiful. And then in the wider world we have the TV streaming models of joy and affluence impossible to equal, set alongside the shadenfreudic, often pompous, commentaries about debt and poverty homelessness and family conflict endemic in this season..

In older age one becodmes quite good at self-analysis. Despite the fact that our present day family Christmasses are sweet and seem to work out well, I know my deeply worried attitude springs from the far-from-idyllic Christmasses in my childhood. In fact it is symptomatic that – apart from reading A Christmas Carol - I can’t remember Christmasses between the ages of nine and eighteen.

But here we have TBWLC decorating a tall tree underpinned with bright shiny presents and t a kitchen charged with quite lovely promise for today and tomorrow. And - wonderfully - the Licked Spoon Entourage, complete with Barney the dog, arrives on Thursday. (With cookies - see her exquisite  Christmas blogs)

And all this I’m beginning to feel, will make a very memorable Christmas. As Tiny Tim says, ‘God Bless us Every One.’

So to you, very gentle reader, I wish a very peaceful, happy and memorable Christmas Eve, Christmas Day & Christmas season.

Wendyx