Friday, May 27, 2016

Happy Valley

27th May 2016

Still in limbo here, waiting to hear back from my preliminary readers, still the prisoner in the dock waiting for a verdict. I guess at this point anything north of "not guilty" will do. You try not to think about it too much. But you do. One reader already told me the first chapter was captivating - made for a cheery sort of morning, a little skip in the step. Another said he was a third of the way through, but then went on to talk about something else. And so the hemlock: wouldn't he have said he was enthralled, if he had been?



I lie awake and wonder what these readers are going to make of a novel that is not Sci-fi and yet is partly set in an alternate future? I hate being this needy, but it seems to go with the territory. A writer spends a good chunk of her life mapping out a story in blood, that doesn't flow so easily, let me say, from the creative vein, and then she has to go around waving it in front of people to see if they approve. Because the written word teeters on a tight-rope walk between dross and brilliance.
So, I retreat back into limbo, which actually feels pretty good at this stage - you've finished your opus, and this lazy time-out is sanctioned. I watch those murder series that give me something to think about, another drama than my own. I am on the second of two of these, both British, one from the BBC called "Happy Valley," and one from ITV, called "Broadchurch."
Time passes. It's an oft repeated line from Dylan Thomas's "Under Milkwood." Time passes. The spinning world spins on. The clock ticks. The pendulum swings. Another morning watching the frost retreat off my lawn, another day of walks with my dogs, hoping to catch sight of a heron, an omen for how this saga I call my life will turn out.



2 comments:

  1. I enjoyed Happy Valley and Broadchurch very much. Have you tried Scott and Bailey? Another good one :) Jill

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  2. Thanks, Jill. I am nearing the end of Broadchurch, and so will try Scott and Bailey next. I appreciate the tip!

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