Ghost Lake Rising

A clean copy of the manuscript arrives

The weird thing about this part of the book writing process, the part at which your manuscript has been handed gently over to the professionals for their guidance and advice, is the strange nothingness of it, which is interspersed with EXTREME EXCITEMENT, followed again by complete normality and quiet living. One day I am walking my dog down the lane in ten year old leggings, a too big coat, bobble hat and wellies, like the crazy village eccentric I am, the next I’m being invited to a swanky author party at the Ivy in London. I can’t go to the party, sadly, due to distance, trains, money and the elderly dog needing so much care and attention. But I have printed the invite out as a small career marker and I shall put it in my scrapbook to mark this place in my author journey. It is thrilling. I have to stop myself from saying “who, Me?!” when something like this happens.

This week double book excitement - firstly, the design for the map that will go in the front of The Ghost Lake arrived so that I can see if everything is in the right place. It’s beautiful. The map was a complex concept as it is a map of several layers of time in the same place, so needed to cover geographical, historical and personal places of note. It’s so beautiful that I think I will get the map printed up and framed to hang on my office wall. The second big thing was that we - myself and my brilliant editor - moved onto the next set of edits, which means I get to see a ‘clean’ copy of the manuscript. What does that mean? It means a copy of the manuscript with all edits so far, with the layout as it will be. There is still work to do on the book, but by reading a clean copy I get a feel of how it will read, without the clutter of a million suggestions in the margins, or highlights by me or the little reminders to myself where I have forgotten what it was that I was talking about and have instead, helpfully, left a series of ???? in a comment box. This is the closest it has been to an actual physical book so far. It also means that I’m at the stage where I will need to allow my mum to read it, and my husband, who both feature in it. I will also be sending chapters to people who have been interviewed for the book, and experts who I have talked to. In short, this is the first time the book creeps out from the safety of the publisher’s office, into the hands of people who have never seen it.

Photo by ASTERISK KWON on Unsplash

Like I say; thrilling, but nerve wracking. I’m worried reading it will hurt my mum; not because of the content, but because grief is a wound that is always having the scab picked off and the book will pick that scab off. I was actively grieving my dad while writing the book, and he features throughout it in a way that wasn't planned, but feels right. The book covers the time when we, as a family, were dealing with the immediate aftermath of my dad’s death in 2022, and how I viewed my mum and her frailty at that time.

I’ve said this before - that every book I write becomes a kind of time capsule for all the emotions I was feeling at the time. I think that is right and proper, that a book should have a fine, umbilical-like chord to a layer of time in which you existed in that moment. If you are writing memoir then that is, essentially what you are doing. This is a personal experience, mine and my family’s personal experience right now, but I think we will be cutting that chord soon and the book will really no longer be mine, it will be interpreted by others, and that’s why it’s so important that my mum and my husband will be ok with how they are portrayed within it.

I know it will make my mum sad to revisit that time. But she said to me when I told her that hurting her and making her sad was my main worry, that it didn’t matter because “it’s all sad anyway. It is sad. I am sad about it.” It made me remember when people were afraid to talk about the death of my daughter in case it upset me, as if I was a bomb that might go off when asked or touched, and that it was difficult to explain to them that they couldn’t set the bomb off, because her death was a constant, slow explosion that never really stopped. I don’t feel like that anymore, but I think perhaps my mum does, about my dad.

All of this is a very long winded way of saying - memoir is a hard genre to write, it is delicate, but it is rewarding. It makes you vulnerable. I am trying to say that I am grateful, so grateful for the way it’s been handled by my agent, my editor and every person I have encountered. This is a beautiful, exciting, nerve-wracking time. I save everything from the process, I celebrate everything in case this is the only time I will have this. And if it is, if this is the only time I am embedded in this creative process, then I want to know that I have felt everything, have allowed myself to experience every part of it keenly.

Thanks for reading.

In other news

Paid Subscriber events - Tomorrow is the end of season open mic, the link will go out in tomorrow’s post. I can’t wait to hear you read your work, and chat to you about what is coming up in season two!

Books from the Margin Book Club Choice for December - On Gallows Down - Nicola Chester

The book club choice for December is Nicola Chester’s On Gallows Down. Come along to the book club book chat on 17th December 10-11am. This event is FREE TO PAID SUBSCRIBERS but I ask for a small donation from guests. You don’t have to have read the book, our book club discussions are wide ranging and exciting. It’s a great way to nourish your book-is soul!

Book your place here:

New Course Klaxon!

What To Look For in Winter

What can we learn from nature in winter? How can we write about it? Where do we exist in the natural world and how do we tie that world to our own lived experiences, physical and emotional?

Winter is the dark time when the world is waiting: a time for survival, a time for for reflection, a time to experience the darker side of the world and to dig in and recognise the strengths in ourselves and the resilience of the world around us. In this four or six week course (depending on the tier you choose) we’ll be exploring nature in poetry and prose using natural and supernatural themes. From migrant birds arriving and leaving, to insects in their subterranean hideouts, the trees speaking to each other out of sight to the rites and folklore around the darkest days. This is your chance to explore the natural winter world both as an observer and in the context of your place in it. In What to Look for in Winter we’ll explore this world through published works, museum artefacts, film, imagery and physical interaction with nature, using prompts and directed activities to write ourselves into the winter months. 

The course starts on 3rd January, a chance for you to start the year by prioritising your writing, perhaps, and to face the post new year’s slump with positivity and courage.

If you are a paid subscriber to Notes from the Margin, you are entitled to a discount on the course, as a thank you for supporting me and my writing.

You can find out more about the course, and book your place on it, here: