Tag: Northern Ireland

2015 Writing Review: margaretmcgoverne.com
And The Buntings Flew, Publishing and Self Publishing, Reading and Books, Writing

My 2015 Writing Review (and plans for 2016!)

Margaret McGoverne

When I was younger, I heartily disliked New Year’s Eve; for my mother, it was a time of looking back and rehashing old tragedies, old regrets. She cried without fail, and to younger me this was painful and put a real pall over the end of the year. But I’ve learned that like Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions, the end of a year is a time to both reflect back on what’s gone and also to look forward! Further, in reflecting on what we haven’t managed to do, we can take stock of the positives, and use our achievements to spur us to greater things in the New Year.

2015 was the year I launched this blog, and started to write up my first novel, And The Buntings Flew. I also published my very first piece of fiction this year! I’ve learned so much about writing, blogging and publishing and although it sounds corny, about what I can strive for, and achieve.

So in the spirit of reviewing, learning and setting what we call at work “stretch” targets for 2016, here’s my review of the year; hopefully it resonates with some of my readers? I’d also love to hear your thoughts on what worked, what emerged and what gave up the ghost in 2015.

And The Buntings Flew – my debut novel

My target was to complete a first draft of And The Buntings Flew, which I envisage will be around 85,000 words long. 2015 was when I actually started the draft; up to that point I was merely flitting between a couple of MS Word documents with a very rough plot, some research on the period and some ideas for characters. Although I haven’t met my target to have a complete first draft, I am now more than 40,000 words in, that’s half way, and have just finished chapter 8. The plot has shaped up and my characters are, I modestly feel, well-developed and rounded in my head, if not yet in the draft! I have a chapter by chapter plan, a couple of spreadsheets with timelines, main events etc. and each main character has a fully drawn word sketch. More; I feel like the ideas have evolved into a creative work, which I will soon finish, edit and one day say; “this is my first book.” I passed my driving test on my second attempt; as we rounded the final corner and set of lights back to the test centre I knew it was in the bag; the feeling is the same for the book, as a creative venture. The next step is to nurture it into a successful one!

To have a read of-the synopsis and some excerpts from chapter one of And the Buntings Flew, please click the links below

My Writing Blog

If you’re reading this, you’ve found my  blog! And I’m very glad you have. This time last year I was pestering friends and relatives to like and subscribe to a landing page and some “About me” info; I’m now proud to have more than 100 followers of the blog, and in turn I’ve discovered some great blogs that inspire, entertain and inform me.

I’ve added some pages, and picked up some great blogging know-how and widgets along the way; my plan for 2016 is to transfer the blog from the free WordPress.com platform to a paid, WordPress.org site. A move to the hosted platform will allow me to customize my theme, remove ads from the blog, add a raft of useful widgets and plugins not currently available to me, and generally remove any restrictions from my blog.

If you’re interested in a comparison between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, this article helpfully broke it down for me:

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com: a definitive guide for 2015

My Other Writings

Writing earlier in the year about short fiction, I became intrigued by the popularity of micro fiction, as well as the resurgence of the novella; (you can read my blog post on short fiction here) I’ve had plenty of ideas for short stories over the years, and did complete one or two supernatural tales in the late 1990s; interestingly, I’ve outlined a short story over the Christmas break that has a distinctly Lovecraftian/M.R. James feel, blended with a couple of very modern horrors; rampant development, especially on greenbelt land, and the daily commute.Watch this space in 2016 for the finished tale!

My first foray into micro fiction went really well, with my short short “New Beginnings” being published by Tim Sevenhuysen at fiftywordstories.com ; it blends my love of gardening and all things weird; please have a read, it won’t take long!

New Beginnings, by Margaret McGoverne


Writing Habits

Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” (Mark Twain)

Mark Twain had his tongue very firmly in his cheek with the above quote; writing is a craft like any other. In Danse Macabre, Stephen King talks about the knife we are all born with; the knife is called talent. Some people are born with huge knives, and these people are called geniuses, but even the largest of knives have to be honed if they are to work, and to be “wielded with great force.”

I have tried to hone my knife this year in as many ways as possible, home life and a  full-time job permitting. A couple of things have worked really well for me, requiring as they do varying levels of commitment; if you are interested in ways to improve and share your work, some of these methods may help.

  • Scribophile

Scribophile is a free to join online writing and critique group; it also has a wealth of learning resources, articles and tips. There are as many communities as sub genres, and I’ve become much more comfortable with sharing my work for critique, as a result of engaging on Scribophile. Basically, you earn “karma” points by critiquing the writings of others, the longer the critique the more points you earn. These points allow you to post your own works. It can be a commitment in your time to critique enough works to post your own, and there is a recommended word limit for each piece of writing to be critiqued (generally 3,000 words) but once you are in the swing of critiquing and have found some like-minded writing/authors it is a very rewarding and useful resource.

  • Open University (OU) and Other Writing Courses

I took a creative writing course online with the OU in 2014 and enjoyed many aspects of the course; it was a very helpful starting point for me. I am actively looking to build on this foundation by taking additional courses in 2016, either with the OU or with a more specific , writer led class with experience in the genre I  wish to work in (contemporary literary/historical fiction) as well as in general writing craft. Suggestions welcome if you have taken a course you can recommend!

Social Media

  • My Facebook page for my writing (Margaret McGoverne, Writer) has attracted some great feedback; via this page I’ve also made contact with people on my personal FB page with some great family and contextual information relating to the background story of And The Buntings Flew. I also love how interconnected the different social media sites are, and how each one leads readers to more information about your work!
  • A great idea I borrowed from Joanna Penn over at The Creative Penn was to set up Pinterest boards with pictures related to works either completed or in progress; I had literally never thought of complementing my writing with visual social media, so this was a wonderful idea to come across. I created a Pinterest account for my writing  and created a Pinterest board with pictures from locations and themes which will feature in And The Buntings Flew. I’ve picked up some Facebook page and blog readers from the Pinterest boards and I have also  found it a very useful exercise to think of images that will feature in or outline the story; in this way I’ve come up with some additional features and angles to the novel which will enrich it , I feel, historically and geographically.
  • Reddit Writing Hub

If you’re not already a Redditor, Reddit is a site where users post content (pictures, links, news items etc) divided by subject matter into “sub-reddits.”

The Reddit writing hub (r/WritingHub) is an index of writing sub-reddits designed to help writers find communities and content relevant to their interests. The largest sub-reddits in the writing hub are r/writing, r/screenwriting, r/writersGroup and r/selfpublish. There are also writing contests and writing prompt sub-reddits, all of which have proved useful to me over the last year.  If you subscribe to the writing hub, your Reddit front page will include updates from the writing sub-reddits, and in this way targeted writing related content is delivered to your effortlessly!  While not a primary resource, I have found the writing hub at times encouraging, informative and a place to discuss issues with like-minded redditors.

A couple of the social media platforms I didn’t get to grips with this year although they were on my list were Periscope and Twitter. The former is a live video streaming app; my idea was to have a regular (OK, semi regular!) live stream broadcast of my novel-writing in progress, complete with feedback from any viewers; the ultimate in hot off the press promoting! I still think this is a great idea but for me right now it’s one I will return to; as I still have a full-time job, finding and keeping a regular time commitment is difficult, I commute to and from London, so getting home is an exercise in variable times. The other thing that made me shelve the idea for now was feedback from my son, an avid gamer and watcher of Twitch, a video streaming app for gamers. My son’s opinion was that the live streaming approach would be more appropriate when I have a completed work that I can promote and direct people to: as an unknown my audience would likely be non-existent, and the time and effort/reward formula just doesn’t seem worth it now. However it’s definitely something I will return to. However I’d love to hear from you if your experience differs!

Twitter is something I don’t use in my personal life; I don’t think I have the commitment to keep readers constantly informed and entertained, and so this is a personal choice, but again I will review and revisit this decision if its seems that the time and effort of updating a Twitter stream would seem to offer rewards.

Lastly I have gained an interest in podcasts during 2015, thanks once more to my son, who avidly consumes them, in a plethora of subject areas. I am definitely interested in recording podcasts that discuss the writing process, and the historical and social background to my novel; I think this would be a great way to get a feel for eventually recording an audiobook version of my novel, either with the help of a professional narrator or narrating my own novel. An interesting question occurs to me as I write this post; for a novel set in Northern Ireland, would the narrator ideally have a “Norn Iron” accent? Something else for me to delve into in 2016!

If you’re still with me, constant reader, I want to thank you for your time and support in 2015; never before has there been so much to tempt and divert us, and I’m profoundly grateful when anyone takes time to read my words.

My resolution, or rather my strategy for 2016 is to write, write write; to reach and reinforce my daily/weekly word count targets , and to explore new ways to improve my craft as a writer, and to reach out to potential readers and fellow writers.

I wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year!.

Margaret x

And The Buntings Flew, Writing, Writing Tools

25,000 words…

Margaret McGoverne

“When I write a novel I’m writing about my own life; I’m writing a biography almost, always. And to make it look like a novel I either have a murder or a death at the end”
(Beryl Bainbridge)

That’s it, I’ve clocked up 25,900 words as at the end of last night, which is just under a third of the way through my projected 80,000 word novel. I hurried over to this site to update my little novel progress widget, proud to tell the world that And The Buntings Flew is inching along, and has reached another milestone.

As I referred to in a previous post, this section has been heavy going, and at times a real mental slog. I have however taken some positives from the experience; the first real plot development is written, and while writing the last chapter some beautiful ideas for plot and themes have come into my head, uncovered no doubt by the heavy plough of my mind as it trudged along the rocky and unforgiving soil of this part of the story.

I found the quote below about writing, and never has it seemed truer to me than at this point in my own novel:

“When I write a novel I’m writing about my own life; I’m writing a biography almost, always. And to make it look like a novel I either have a murder or a death at the end.” (Beryl Bainbridge)

Sadly, not all of the deaths in my story are fictional, but I have taken some poetic license, as Beryl Bainbridge suggests, to tie the story up into a novel.

Margaret

And The Buntings Flew, Reading and Books

Novels That Explore Growing Up in Northern Ireland During The Troubles

Margaret McGoverne

I’m currently writing up chapter six of my novel, And The Buntings Flew, and its taking a long time; too long. I plan to end the chapter with the first major plot development, but I’m stuck on a descriptive section; something about what I was writing was bothering me, making progress slow.

I’ve had to undertake quite a bit of research for this chapter, including remapping a route through 1970’s Belfast using 2015 Google maps, and confirming which Peace walls existed in the time frame of the novel, but there’s nothing too awful related in this chapter, so I took some time out to wonder why I was dragging my heels (and to write this post).

I’ve mentioned before, I think, that elements of this novel are very autobiographical, including the chapter I’m currently writing; upon reflection I think that beyond the obvious challenges and fears of growing up in Belfast during the Troubles, there were more subtle influences, and writing about them has been hard work, mentally. However these issues are at the heart of the novel. The themes of  identity, concealment and a feeling of alienation, being physically, mentally and spiritually blocked off from parts of the city and its life, and from normality itself, are very prominent in this part of my novel, and purposely so. The peace walls are a very solid and real metaphor for the intangible barriers and blockades that children could encounter growing up in a working-class area of Belfast.

I reflected on my search for other novels dealing with the subject of childhood or simply living in NI during the Troubles, and found, unsurprisingly that these were common and prominent themes. If you’re interested in perceptions on the specific situation in Northern Ireland, please have a read of these novels:

Bog Child 

Set during the 1980’s during the latter end of the Troubles, Fergus, an 18-year-old boy discovers the prehistoric body of a murdered girl in a peat bog; he also has to deal with elder brother’s imprisonment and hunger strike, his parent’s relationship problems and his own involvement with the IRA. Fergus is affected by the politics of his own time and that of the murdered girl in the bog. Siobhan Dowd’s novel set in Northern Ireland was a 2009 Carnegie Medal winner.

Cal 

Another novel set in Northern Ireland during the 1980’s, Bernard MacLaverty’s novel tells the story of a young Catholic man living in a Protestant area of NI. Basically a doomed love story, Cal also explores the complexities of living during the Troubles, which affected every facet of everyday life, including the early loss of innocence for many.

Reading in the Dark 

Seamus Deane’s novel explores childhoods in Derry, Northern Ireland during the 1940s and 50s; a novel of childhoods haunted by historical and current events, and cloaked in silence, this is a dark and lyrical story; the unnamed young narrator is faced with injustice and intrigue; again there is a journey of discovery for the main character, intertwined with the political backdrop of the province.

 A Lonely Way 

If the novels explore some of the issues for people who grew up amidst the Troubles, what about the effects of such an upbringing and the aftermath of a typically harrowing event? A correspondent of mine advised me of a new novel by Lesley Grayson; the story concerns a young man whose parents are killed by a car bomb, and who finds out the identify of the IRA men who placed the bomb.  A series of events lead to a brutal decision, one which has profound implications for all of the people impacted by the bombing. I’m currently reading this book, and it’s chilling to reflect upon how this could have been the situation in my own family. Please have a look for the book on Amazon, it’s a great read that explores some very real considerations for children of the Troubles.

Finally, my novel And The Buntings Flew will consider many of the themes touched on above; conflicts of loyalty, both within the family and the wider community, the restrictions of a tribal and actual separation across the province and a permanent feeling of a state of siege are some of the challenges that I hope to explore. However these very real troubles are never victorious; if not vanquished, they are at least defied by the courage and generosity so often found in the people of Northern Ireland, across all religious and political divides.

And The Buntings Flew, Publishing and Self Publishing

And The Buntings Flew – Free excerpts from Chapter 1

Margaret McGoverne

IEBookcover‘ve created a taster PDF which I’m quite pleased with; it contains the synopsis and selected excerpts from chapter 1 of And The Buntings Flew.

Please do have a read and let me know what you think and if you would like to read more excerpts; more importantly, if you would buy the book!

And The Buntings Flew Excerpts Chapter 1

And The Buntings Flew, Publishing and Self Publishing, Reading and Books, Writing Tools

And The Buntings Flew… on Pinterest

Margaret McGoverne

I was reading author J.F. Penn’s newsletter today (check out her excellent site by the way!) and discovered how she uses Pinterest  to great effect by having boards for her upcoming novels pinned with pictures which provide tantalising hints to readers of where the stories will take them!

Without further ado I headed over to Pinterest, and have created a board with some pictures that convey the setting and subject matter of And The Buntings Flew, to give prospective readers a taste of what’s to come. I’d love to hear what you think of this idea, which I think is brilliant (it would never have occurred to me), and your thoughts on my fledgling board!

And The Buntings Flew

Who were the Black Irish, and what is their story? – IrishCentral.com

Margaret McGoverne

What a serendipitous find!

Who were the Black Irish, and what is their story? – IrishCentral.com.

elizapurcell_thumbI was browsing Irish Central the other day and came across this really interesting article on the source of the phrase “Black Irish” in relation to people of Irish ancestry with dark or tanned complexions, black hair and dark eyes.

I refer to the “Black Irish” colouring in my novel, as a mixed blessing – exotic, yet very different from the majority of Irish complexions, which tend to the very pale, with light coloured eyes and either fair, red or dark hair.

Several characters in And The Buntings Flew exhibit typical Black Irish colouring, as do I, and many of my family (check out my profile picture) – pictured above is my paternal grandmother who was a beautiful example of the Black Irish colouring.

Irish Central’s article provides a great introduction to the subject, so please have a read, as it gives some context to a phrase that might otherwise be misunderstood, as it is not one in common parlance.

And The Buntings Flew, Writing

Synopsis: And The Buntings Flew

Margaret McGoverne

This is an updated and trimmed version of the synopsis I wrote last year, which brings the novel straight into the action; I had previously considered starting the story a couple of years before the main events outlined in the synopsis, but that may need to be included in a prequel at a later date!

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It is 1975, and shy, thoughtful eight-year-old Purdey (short for Perdita) is a mongrel – half Catholic, half Protestant. She loves to leave behind the painted kerbs, Union flags, and street murals of her Belfast home to visit the nearby shore of Belfast Lough, but her parents don’t take her often enough.  Her mother has told her stories of her own youth spent by the Antrim coast, and has promised to take her to see the birds this summer, both residents and migrants, that nest in the reeds and bushes of the mudflats and lagoons of the lough.

Purdey and her family’s lives are shattered that fateful summer when she is an unseen witness to what appears to be a terrorist attempt on her father’s life following a stand off with the IRA. His crime? He refuses to hand over his young Catholic assistant for “punishment” after an unspoken transgression. Unknown to anyone else, Purdey catches a glimpse of the uncovered face of one of the gunmen, and recognizes him.

Not long after, Purdey’s mother is also struck down by a catastrophic brain haemorrhage, leaving her comatose in the city hospital, deep in the Republican part of town where Protestants fear to tread.

With both her parents afflicted by misfortune, Purdey faces an overwhelming dilemma: tell the grown ups that she knows who shot and injured her father, or say nothing and live with the terrible knowledge. Either way, her life and the lives of those close to her are in danger.

The violence surrounding Purdey’s family and neighbours escalates, culminating in the senseless double murder of a pair of young Catholic brothers,  shocking even the battle weary Loyalist residents of Troubles torn Ulster.

Together with help from some unlikely allies, Purdey must find her way through the fear and hatred in her community, and the betrayals by those closest to her. All is not as it seems, and loyalty is no longer a word upon which anyone can rely, on either side of the political and religious divide.

And The Buntings Flew, Writing

My First Novel Progress: And The Buntings Flew

Margaret McGoverne

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I’ve written and publish a dozen or so non fiction (heath, well-being and spirituality) articles, but I decided a long time ago that I wanted to be a novelist. Wanting to be and getting on with it are very different things, and although I’ve been gathering material, carrying out research and messing about with names and plots for a long time, I hadn’t actually sat down with my laptop and written ANY of this story that I have carried around for at least two decades. Last year I committed to actually writing, and finishing the story that burned within me, but it was sporadic.

At the end of last year I had an epiphany; I was scared. Scared that this story wasn’t worth the telling, or more likely, that I could not tell it. It would be feeble, juvenile, leaden writing, boring, cringeworthy.

I sat me down and gave me a talking to. Lets make 2015 the year you write out this story, for better or worse. Write it down, edit, print it out, re-edit, have it beta read, publish or self publish.

So these posts will follow my journey this year. I have set myself a target – to write up my story as an 80-90,000 word novel, and have it ready to publish by the end of this year. The weekly word count isn’t a huge challenge: 1600 – 1700 words. What will challenge me is to see this through, to approach it as I do a project at work, bringing my planning and execution skills to bear on something I am wrangling from my own imagination and history.

Follow my progress here and the progress of my first novel, And The Buntings Flew, together with lessons learned, any new tools I discover to help new writers, and my successes and opportunities to improve. Join me on my journey!