Book of Lost Nights

Free at last. Prof. Shouty is done (he’s given me a lavish dedication in the book, which improves my temper no end).

My parents came and went last week. They were frogmarched through a rigorous programme of amusements which they appear to have enjoyed. My sister suggested taking them to Greenwich and we went via the water taxi from Westminster (great value, by the way). I was delighted on two fronts, as it was a lovely but cold day and also it was something I’d meant to do for research, same with the London Eye. We had some resistance to things like the Eye and the Observatory (for height reasons) but once we bullied them up there they seemed to dig it and I could tell that it would be the occasion for some showboating once they got back to France, so I consider it all a job well done.

We had a day out in Canterbury with a guided tour of Canterbury Cathedral, did Mass at Westminster Cathedral, saw Greenwich Observatory, stood on the meridian, met my sister’s boyfriend (a nice fellow), and on Thursday when they first arrived, my mother declared a desire to shop. My Dad and I shivered inwardly, as shopping in London near Christmas isn’t remotely funny. At any rate, I left her to it, left my Dad to it (he was supposed to be dispatching towards a pub, but ended up wandering the streets, doubtless cursing English dominance over the Scots which is kind of expected of him in these situations) and I was left to do my own thing. Since my copy of Marlowe’s Complete Plays (which I bought in Oxford about a fortnight ago) proved to be unexpectedly expurgated (about 50 pages were suddenly missing from the middle of Edward II) I took that back for a replacement and after that thought I would check out the John Lewis in Oxford Street.

See, for a little while now, I’ve had this feeling I would like to get back into doing some crafts. I’ve been watching djinnj’s journal for a while now and it always gives me an itchy feeling in my fingers. I used to be quite big on tapestry, but kits are so damned expensive, and besides, I thought I’d like to try knitting. When I was a kid, I was shit at all needle/clothy activities except for macrame, which I was unexpectedly adept at. So I thought knitting might be my thing. Plus, it’s winter and cold and good sweaters are expensive. If I knit my own shit, I can make what I want and am also not contributing to the miserable slave-like existence of some poor bastard in a sweatshop somewhere. Unless of course they make the yarn. Then I’m screwed.

At any rate, I went in and picked up a little book, some needles, yarn, bits and tricks like stitch holders and scissors and darning needles, and nearly bought a £20 knitting bag. Common-sense triumphed unexpectedly though, as it finally dawned on me that I would be better off finding out if I liked it or not before buying a special very expensive bag when a placky bag would do. I was spellbound by all of the beautiful yarns though, and the magazines full of gorgeous designer patterns. Clearly things had moved on in the pattern stakes from when I was a lass.

So I had a bash, but the instructions weren’t terribly clear, and the only things to make in the book were baby clothes. I have no children and whilst I do know some babies, I wouldn’t say I knew them well enough to contribute weeks of spare time to clothing them. So I ended up getting this book at the Books Etc at Canary Wharf called “Stitch ‘n Bitch” and that did the trick. Very clear instructions, nice patterns, and that’s been it.

I was actually pretty wiped by the time my parents went back on Monday (I’d been Mr. Shouty’s bitch right up to the moment I had to leave work to collect them from the airport, and since there isn’t a lot of room at my place I had to sleep on the floor whilst they had the bed) so I was too exhausted to write, plus I’d lost a lot of momentum. I tried, and nothing came. Furthermore, it felt like horribly hard work, and I don’t want it to feel like work.

Knitting, however, was just the ticket. So far I’ve finished a small swatch of blue fabric (don’t laugh, I had to rip it up and restart it THREE times!) and a scarf in this rather lovely trio of wools in chocolate, cream, and a kind of taupe/oatmeal mix. It’s 100% chunky merino wool knitted on enormous needles and I’m very proud of it, and once I work out how, I’m going to post a pic of it.

Next project up is a ribbed scarf in a kind of kingfisher teal colour, at which point I shall learn to purl. I am actually really, really excited by this. Maybe I need to get out more, but hey.

Of course, none of this is getting the book written (I did TRY knitting and writing, but it didn’t work. I could have wept…) so the plan is now to forget my previous word shortfall, what with Mr. Shouty and the Parental Units visiting, and just start again from scratch. As of last night. During which I didn’t write. I knitted my scarf and watch “The Two Towers”, because sometimes you just need a bit of Faramir, I’ve discovered to my surprise.

But I know what I want to do next, and it’s Parkes, my third strand and the Exposition Lady. She is about to have a nice long chat with my villain so that should be done tonight.

I’m currently working on three story strands (which is enough – one to cover Em, one to cover Danny, and another to cover the world and things that Em and Danny don’t know about but which the audience needs to). My agent in this case is the cold and adulterous Parkes, and I better get back to her before my dinner finishes cooking.

So, yeah, say it loud and say it proud… my life is my own again!

Current Reading: Marlowe: The Complete Plays

4 Comments | In: Books, Research, Travel, Writing | tags: canterbury, christopher marlowe, knitting, london. | #

Did I say I went to Deptford on Friday?

Well, I went to Deptford. Again, it was all I could possibly want. I don’t own a decent camera with a flash, but some of the locations were just fantastic. There was a lane called Watergate that led down right to the banks of the Thames, reachable through a tall, spiked, locked gate, and to get there involved passing through the most marvelous dead-end alley, anciently cobbled and with windowless grey stone walls on both sides. It might have been designed to chase people into for the purposes of mugging and murdering them, as the end of it was concealed from the main square as the alley turned, just slightly.

Through the horrifyingly uninviting gate there was, as far as I could see in the dark, a short slipway covered in rusted rubbish and discarded shopping trolleys and the murky movement of the Thames itself at low tide. I was thrilled. And very scared, as it was a *very* disturbing alley. The sort of alley that if you got caught in it after dark by unsavoury characters, you would have no chance, as it led nowhere but the river, and no-one has any reason to pass along it (except potential suicides and fugitives from the law, both of which I am sure Deptford is richly furnished with). Additionally, no-one lived nearby, the alley being the gap between private wharves with enormously high walls, topped with razor wire and very threatening signs. It opened into a small square with a small patch of grass, and a school with basketball courts. The courts were in use, which was slightly comforting.

I went looking for somewhere to place a sinister business, a sinister pub, and a couple of sinister places to be after dark, and it delivered in spades. All of the sinister dark water came gratis. There was an eerie looking electrical power station, and the machinery cast fabulous intricate shadows. All rusting, of course, just like the sort of bridge/dock affair just off the Strand which was all boarded up and covered with notes telling you to keep off it, but no-one had gotten around to knocking it down.

There was also an awesome boarded-up abandoned pub called “The Thames” or “The Thames Castle”, but it might be just that it looked a bit like a castle. It had clearly been connected to other buildings at some point, but they were gone, leaving it standing up like a little decaying turret in scrappy grass and rubble, looking out over the river. Again, decaying and falling apart and unutterably lonely.

So many things on that trip, and in such a short distance, for instance, the vast expanses of the land near the Creek, lying in rubble and the gulls cry even in the dark (it’s impossible to describe how strange it is to see unused land in London, particularly a stone’s throw from the prosperous, gentrified Greenwich). The river was out and left big banks of clay full of runnels and the inevitable trash. There is literally a five foot walk from the crumbling industrial decay of Deptford to the bright, sterile, nouveau-riche bait developments of Greenwich, you could do it in two steps and be in different worlds.

So, even though I said I wouldn’t do it, I did, and I’m not sorry. And something else cool happened.

I had half an eye open for St. Nicholas’ church. It’s where Marlowe was laid to rest (in an unmarked grave, as suits someone who died under a bit of a cloud) after his murder/accident. I thought, after considering the matter, it might be polite to drop by and say hi.

But could I find this place? It wasn’t in my mini-atlas of London, it didn’t have a street named after it, and the maps in the biography were of no use. So I walked through the ruins, along the river to Greenwich, where I had this frighteningly cheap but agreeably tasty dish of ho fun with beef and black bean sauce at a noodle house there (£4.20 for that and Chinese tea! In bloody London! And I got to sit down and eat it there too! And it was a decent sized portion – you knew you’d had a meal. What a bargain!)

Anyhow, fed and watered, I walked back to Deptford High Street along a slightly different route, and the church appeared out of nowhere (clearly it had been hiding behind some trees when I first walked up, and this time I caught it with its pants down, as it were).

And now I really was sorry I had no camera, as I think Elaine would really have appreciated it. For a start, there were these carven skull and bones resting atop each gatepost, and they were very cool. I have tried googling an image of them, but have had no joy (that said, they appear on a poster near the railway station saying “Welcome to Deptford” – I would have thought skull and crossbones wouldn’t necessarily scream “welcome” but what do I know?) But they were very striking, even in the dark.

The church itself is one of the oldest in London (not that Deptford was part of London back then) and possibly Saxon, but the oldest part is the medieval tower, the rest had to be rebuilt. It also contains a very nice 18th charnel house, the sort of thing that rarely survives nowadays. The churchyard is laid out with flower beds and then lawn, and in the very far corner of the yard, hidden away, there is a white plaque “Near this spot lies the body of Christopher Marlowe” and a quote from Doctor Faustus, “Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight”.

It was, needless to say, a very creepy spot, especially in the dark, in front of a plaque marking the unmarked dead and quoting Faust, no less; and the desire to run fell upon me. I managed to contain myself, however, and then I saw something glittering in the dark near a pile of mulch. I picked it up and it was a piece of tile or pottery (I kept it) with a kind of irridescent glaze, quite cracked, and on one side there is a bird in blue, and on the other side only a tiny figure “8″. I suspect that this was once part of a date, and the widely spaced numbering and the design of the bird make me think it is probably quite old, I’m not an expert but I’m guessing 18th century at least – it looks Jacobean to me (it’s not Georgian or Victorian, at any rate, being rather primitive). I shall try to get a picture of it up here, because the bird must be hand painted and is very pretty, though snapped off before the head.

And I thought, wow, wouldn’t this be a cool place to have an archaeological dig? (At least in the daylight, at any rate.)

Oh well.

On the way back there was a single flower still in bloom by the church door, a yellow rose (I think it was yellow, the front of the church was illuminated by that kind of white streetlighting so it was a bit hard to tell) that still smelled of summer if you inhaled hard enough.

And I was very well-pleased.

(Looks at the clock) Shit. I better get back to work. I’ve still got two chapters to do for Mr. Shouty, but I am champing at the bit to get on with my own things. It’s quite intolerable. Yesterday I made myself not do anything because the week was such chaos and I went to Oxford for the day. Very nice, but would have been nicer if it hadn’t been pissing down.

Laters.

6 Comments | In: Archaeology, Books, Food, History, Research, Travel, Weird, Writing | tags: christopher marlowe, london. | #

So, I was working out what my backlog was. I had a fantastically productive day last Saturday, when I did 2000 words. However, they weren’t 2000 words of Chapter One.

See, it was like this. I wrote up til Danny meeting Em for the first time. However, when she appeared in the story she remained utterly mute, and I realised that I didn’t really know what she’d say. She just kind of glared at me from Danny’s sink, and looked as though she was going to start hissing at me too if I didn’t get my act together. So I decided that it would be worthwhile to write about what she’d been up to until that point.

And that just took *off*. So much so, that I think it would be a shame not to incorporate that stuff into the book as she has this rather nice little voice of her own. However, I can’t use it early in the book as it undercuts her entrance and I don’t want the reader to know too much about her upfront. It also casts a semi-sympathetic light on her, which is not what I need at present.

Additionally, I have lots of horrible copy-editing to do. So on a night when I do that, I excuse myself my 500 words for the night. Also, if I make a research trip, like the Deptford or Isle of Dogs trip, I excuse myself 500 words for that night, also.

Basically, this means that I’m now 4000 words behind including tonight’s lot, unless I go out on another research trip tonight (equalling 500 words) or copy-edit (again, 500 words a chapter) (I’ll almost certainly do one or the other, possibly even both) – Tuesday I got there but didn’t get to walk about as much as I would like. For a start, the traffic through Mile End was horrendous as the Limehouse tunnel was shut. Secondly, it was All Saints Day so I had to go to Mass that evening (ended up going to this little church off Commercial Road.) By the time I pulled into the Rotherhithe tunnel, it was getting too late to do much walking in Deptford and Greenwich (Deptford in particular being the sort of place you wouldn’t want to hang out in too late at night, particularly near the wharves which were what I especially wanted to see). And it was a work night.

Thing is, I really enjoy these trips. But then, they are easier to do than write, even if they are exhausting and take longer. I always was the sort of person that falls into a lost dream in London – I could just walk and walk forever, with no set destination, (as I’m sure niamh_sama recalls). There’s always something to see. I wonder if I’m using the trips as a writing avoidance strategy, since writing itself can be a pain in the arse. Plus, I got sent three more chapters by Mr. Shouty today, so they have to be done over the weekend.

I think that I shall call a moratorium on the trips for now. I STILL haven’t finished Lemony Snicket, but I did pick up a book by Charles Nicholl called “The Reckoning”, and I would probably appreciate a constitutional around Deptford more once I’ve actually read that. Basically, both Danny and Em have their signature villains. Danny’s lives in Deptford, which is where Kit Marlowe ended up getting stabbed to death (through the eye, no less) after a vicious brawl over a bar bill, or “the recknynge” in the language of the time. If that doesn’t give a town cred in a Faust pastiche, I don’t know what does. So I’ll take a country walk on Sunday and that will have to do me for now.

I’m looking forward to reading it, anyway. Brilliant but wild Elizabethan gay atheist poet/playwright/spy dies suspiciously in a bar fight which apparently raised eyebrows even at the time. I mean, what the hell’s not to love about any of that?

At any rate, the bottom line is that progress is slow and what there is actually isn’t happening for Chapter One. I’m reluctant to show the Em stuff I’ve written yet as it undercuts Chapter One. Hence the silence. I’ll be wrapping Em’s bit this weekend for now.

But I’ll watch that bloody “Lost” at some point. You see if I don’t.

2 Comments | In: Books, History, Research, Travel, Writing | tags: authors, charles nicholl, christopher marlowe, lemony snicket, london, the reckoning. | #