Tag: Restoration Day

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Coming Soon! A Season of Change

Change is afoot!

For reasons which I Am Not At Liberty To State (yet), the three novels I have published to date may shortly cease to be available in paperback form. Or in paper form at all.

But what you lose on the swings, you make up on the roundabouts.

Side note: I am having difficulty thinking of anything that one might lose on swings which could then be recouped or regained on roundabouts. One’s lunch? No. One’s wallet? Doubtful. A parkouring thief who sails across the playground on the swings before being trapped in the roundabout like a comic actor in a revolving door? Unlikely, to say the least. However, far be it from me to question the metaphoric wisdom of Those Who Have Gone Before.

A woman sits sadly on a swing, back to the viewer. The swing next to her is empty. In the background is a roundabout, also empty.
This woman has clearly lost something on the swings which she has not yet regained on the roundabout.

However.

While I am hoping in the future to make my books available in quality hardback form, in the shorter term the role of the roundabouts will be played by….

(drumroll please)

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How Characters Come to Be

“Unlike most writers, Rankin does not plan his characters: he has said that Rebus arrived virtually fully formed on the page.”

Until I read these words in How to Write Like a Bestselling Author (a collection of magazine articles on bestseller characteristics by Tony Rossiter), I had no idea that most writers actually plan their characters. One of those disconcerting moments when you realize that what’s going on in your head is not the same as what’s going on in other people’s heads, even if you have the same name for it.

I don’t plan my characters. They just pop into my head, like bubbles rising from the frothy cauldron of my unconscious mind. And while I might change some minor things about them – such as their names, and whether or not they’re actually in the book – the characters themselves are fairly constant. (Minor spoilers follow…)

woman in bubble rising from waterfall
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Naming the Teapot

When writing my answers to last week’s interview, the phrase “my trusty pot of tea” sprang unbidden to my lips – or rather fingertips. Possibly this was influenced by Richard IV’s “trusty fruit knife” which saw him safely through a single-handed confrontation with ten thousand Turks at the gates of Constantinople.

There is of course a long history of the naming of swords, particularly mythical or otherwise fictional ones – Excalibur, Durendal, Anduril, Rhindon – but mostly it’s just swords, axes, and hammers that get this acclaim, all weapons of assault and battery. Cooking pots, fountain pens, and other useful articles don’t generally rate a name, which is a bit depressing when you think how much more beneficial non-destructive things are.

Setting a much better example for us all is Lord Ickenham (a.k.a. Pongo Twistleton’s Uncle Fred), who sallies forth to the bathroom at Blandings Castle “armed with his great sponge Joyeuse”. Named, presumably, after Charlemagne’s sword Joyeuse, which would have been a much less pleasant bathtime companion.

The-crown-jewels-blaise-alexandre-desgoffe
Voici Joyeuse! The sword – the big squishy green thing’s a cushion, not a sponge.
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