I hated our time in Rouen.
'I hated our time in Rouen . . . '
My mare cast a shoe a league before the town and I was forced to lead her and thus we arrived, both of us, footsore and tired. Guy offered me his gelding, but I would not ride. Khazia had carried me unstintingly, it was the least I could do to walk beside her as she suffered a bruised sole. Guy dismounted and led his horse, and we barely spoke, but each time his arm rubbed against mine butterflies danced in my belly.
I’ve discovered Twitter.
Lest you think I’ve been in an oubliette for the last however long, let me say I knew Twitter was there, it’s just that I have been slow on the uptake. I had to learn about FB and blogging first, and then about Wattpad. And now finally Twitter.
To be frank, whilst I have a rollicking great time with each tweet, I am not sure I am really the right kind of person for it. For a start I am a writer given to long sentences. One of the editors who works with me takes sabres to my sentences. If Richard Armitage were reading one of my books for Naxos Audiobooks, I swear he would have to practice free-diving to stretch his lung capacity before beginning. 140 characters is seriously like putting me in a chocolate shop and saying pick two!
I’m not sure what sent me to Twitter last week, but when I arrived, I found the cast of Spooks were tweeting. 
Supposedly. I opted to follow them. Imagine my surprise when an email popped up saying Lucas_North was following me. What else could I say but ‘Unnerved. Are you *following* me or following me?’ Then SirHJPierce followed me, talking about my roast lamb, then RosMyers and she told me to ask SirHJPierce where he put her jeans and leather jackets because I asked her what it took to earn a black leather jacket on the Grid. And finally, my hero, MalcolmWJ, the techno-whizz, so calm and gentle and who appears to be having hell’s own trouble with his Welsh mum, Mullered Melia, who has attacked Lucas and left lovebites or similar on SirHJ’s neck to which RuthEvershed is reacting badly. A lot of alcohol is consumed on the Grid (well, they are saving the UK after all) and Lucas and Dimitri and John Porter (Strikeback not Spooks) spend ages worrying about the pub, bollards and CCTV cameras.
It would be wonderful to think that it was the stars of that most superb TV series having some fun. 
http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2010/09/spooks-characters-on-twitter/
But I am noticing a pattern, a tone. They all sound similar. I found Guy of Gisborne on Twitter too, although I am not following him, but his tweets read just like Lucas_North’s. Well, I suppose it could be Richard Armitage, but wouldn’t he be too busy doing all the things he does and particularly rushing round shooting Captain America just now?
Whatever the case, it’s all highly amusing. I have tried feeding them lines in the hope that they’ll take up a story and run with it in 140 characters, thereby building a flash-fiction of sorts, but so far they have their own agenda. Fair enough too!
All this prompted me to take note of Twitter and the writer. How serendipitous then that this week, I find a few blogs talking about just that.
http://jamigold.com/2010/09/twitter-is-a-writers-bff/
http://jamigold.com/2010/09/twitter-love-story/ This second a guest post from Mercedes Yardley of http://abrokenlaptop.com/
Now if all this fun could lead to agents and to publishers and to an increased readership if our writing is already out there, it makes all the delicious time- wasting worthwhile. Like sneaking the third chocolate from the chocolate shop while no one is looking.
(Please note: this writer in no way advocates shoplifting by the use of that last sentence.)
Things that make a memorable end of week . . .
The football Grand Final. Sun and mild weather. The garden unfolding more. Hints of beauty giving way to full-blown glamour. 
Planting vegetables for summer. Walking the dogs on the beach each day. Wading in the chill water, allowing it to reach up to the calf. Hearing bees working in the garden. Watching my cousin play great football. Grooming the horse. The boatshed build beginning. Planning a menu for my son’s twenty sixth birthday.
When I began writing the fan-fiction The Sheriff’s Collector, it was all a bit of fun. It meant nothing, it was just a tale of a tale and had no plot, no real characters that I empathised with, no setting, nothing that means anything to a writer taking their craft seriously.
The other day, I was driving along the stock lane at the farm and I heard a tune I quite liked, with an unpretentious English voice talking to me over the melody. I pricked up my ears when I heard: ‘ Did you know that Dickens invented 13,000 characters in his lifetime?’
Guy was such a strange man. Secretive? Without doubt.
I could have talked on my mother for the whole journey. To talk would have been to honour her. But Guy would not talk of his own mother at all. At one point I had chatted so much to him about Moncrieff and my memories of the place, it was many leagues before I realized he had said nothing – just sat quietly allowing my words to surround him, possibly even drown him. When I thought on it, I was surprised he hadn’t ordered me to desist in that cool, authoritative way of his. Already during our travels I had seen flashes of his temper.
30 Days of Writing Questions was from a meme on A Broken Laptop. It became 25 days of writing as it applied to my own writing life. It should really be answered one question at a time in depth each day you blog but Time is at a premium just now. So here goes my abridged version. If you subscribe to my blog and read this, please assume you are tagged and play around with it and pass it on.
When I first read Sei Shonagon, one of the things I noticed and deplored, was her misplaced arrogance. The arrogance of the nobility of a thousand years ago. But one can never ignore her acuity, her powers of observation. It is this particular aspect of her work that I love and which I try to emulate in my own Pillow Book.
To arrive in Le Mans on that day was remarkable. We had heard rumours on the road of the Plantagenet family wars and it was no surprise to hear that King Henry had fallen sick whilst at Le Mans where he had been born. He and Richard were in the middle of a horrendous brawl over succession, with Phillip of France siding with Richard. Phillip and Richard attacked the town, and feckless, disloyal Henry ordered parts of his birth place to be burned to stall their invasion. But even a king could not control the wind which changed and caused a massive conflagration, threatening to burn his birthplace utterly. Henry fled. Leaving the town to put out its fires and lick its wounds. We had heard that Henry had retired to Chinon but his health failed by the day and he died two days before we arrived at Le Mans. I was surprised the town thought to ring bells to mourn him. Guy said such was the power of a king.
A thought occurred to me today as the hours progressed, that I lead, along with millions of others in this world, a varied life. That variety is the spice of life.
I have just posted a comment on Hyaline Prosaic’s blog. She’s a historic re-enactment enthusiast and has just spent the weekend cooking over a traditional campaign campfire. Not just pottage and crusts . . . but roasts and coq au vin. This is happening in the States as we speak.
