At the Museum again today, and I have just been to Alton College, talking to some really delightful 6th formers about our writing competion. I've realised that judging it is going to be horribly difficult; I'm glad I'm not the only person doing it.
The first snowdrops are out under the yew tree and the first aconite has appeared. Celia, the gardener, has spent the last few days having bonfires - I wish I'd been here for those. The fire is still smoking even after a night of heavy rain. It has just started snowing, and there are still hideous grey heaps of snow and ice beside some roads from the last lot. I feel as though it will still be here in July.
The Museum's new reading group meets on Monday 1st. We are discussing Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid. (I have found it very enjoyable but strangely unengaging.) Wednesday 10th February is the next meeting of the Writing Group. The "homework" is to write something inspired by a small ad ( or a gumtree.com ad). New members are very welcome.
Friday, 29 January 2010
Sunday, 24 January 2010
The Writer Back In Residence
Today is my first day back at the Museum for a month. I have felt like The Writer Not In Residence - it has been awful. Each day I was meant to be here it has been too snowy. Chawton seems to be in the middle of The Hampshire Snow Triangle, a place where people end up spending two nights awaiting rescue in their freezing cars. But today I’m back, and today … it’s snowing.
I have had some really nice emails from an American writer. Her name is Chris Stewart and she is doing a brilliant project , inspired by Sense and Sensibility, which involves reading along with Marianne Dashwood. Anyway, Chris asked me some questions and I thought I might try to answer them here…they are big questions and I’m sure that my answers will change as my time here goes on.
1. How has being in Jane Austen’s house affected your writing and your feelings about yourself as a writer?
2. Is it inspiring being there, or do you feel any pressure to produce something amazing or a mixture of both?
3. Have you adopted any of Jane Austen’s writing habits under the influence of the house (and possibly her presence!) or do you share similarities in your style of writing already?
4. What projects are you working on, and does Jane Austen figure in any of them?
5. If you were doing a project such as mine, what would you be interested in learning/doing?
Well, I think the first thing I have noticed is how 200 years now seems to be such a short time, and I think this has changed the way I feel about everything.
If 200 years isn’t so long, the past and its people are more present, and less seems to be lost. I find this comforting. One of the odd and lovely things about being here is that some of the objects in the Museum are things that were once owned by my great aunts. For instance, a box that was carved by Jane’s brother, Francis, was, until not that long ago, something that my Aunt Diana kept cereal box and cracker toys in for the amusement of visiting children; and some of the smaller portraits I recognize as having once hung on their walls. I only had vague ideas of who these various Austens were when I was growing up - I probably wasn’t paying attention - but here they are now. It is as though I am following them round and we have all ended up where we should be. I do have this feeling - probably quite misplaced - of coming home. And this is ridiculous - why should I pay more attention to this branch of my family tree than any others? There are thousands of people on the same level of the family tree as me. And I have some really interesting Scottish ancestors too, including a captain who was shipwrecked on an island and was rescued to tell the tale. I had an Indian grandmother who died when my father was tiny - we know close to nothing about her. These stories are what I’m interested in writing about at the moment. It will be fiction, but the novel I’m trying to finish follows the story of five generations of a family from Hampshire to Canada and India and back again. I’m only going as far back as the Edwardians and the novel isn’t to do with Jane Austen.
I’m interested in ideas about home and belonging (and not belonging). But I can see that it is rather convenient of me to feel the pull of Jane Austen’s cottage in Chawton, which happens to be gorgeous and only 27 miles from where I live, rather than the houses in Scotland or India or Canada or the north of England where other ancestors dwelt.
My novel is about (I hope) the pull of places. It was going to be called Dancing on The Boat but now it is called The Home Museum.
Being here has really helped with the writing of it. It has helped me to shape it. I love being in a museum and I have been so interested to see what goes on behind the scenes. I’m so interested in the whole business of curating - it seems to me to be rather like what I have to do with the huge amount of material that I have to work with; and what any novelist has to do when they decide which things, scenes, conversations, images and so on are going to be included in the novel. I guess I’m also interested in the way that we curate our own lives, the stories and memories that we keep, the things that we decide are significant and those that we discard deliberately or without a thought
The fourth generation person in my novel is a library assistant (a fantasy job of mine) but volunteers to help in a rather dusty local museum (hence the title) which was once the house where her great grandparents lived. My fictional museum is nothing like The JAHM which is never ever dusty. I’m still a long way from it being finished, and who knows if anybody will want to publish it, but my aim now is that the semi-amorphous mass will become a sleek creature by August 1st - an evolution from amoeba (the single cell of the first idea) through countless stages (creatures who dwell where there is no light) to the colossal squid of my ambition and dreams.
Question 2
It is inspiring being here. I think everybody finds that - that is why there are so many dedicated volunteer stewards. It would be hard not to find the house and garden and its setting restful and beautiful and so inspiring - there's peace and holy quiet here. There is space to think here. It must be bit different for Louise and Ann and the other people who work so hard here, ensuring that this wonderful atmosphere is maintained, but of course they are here because they love the place and the wonderful spells it casts.
I don’t find it intimidating, though. I don’t expect ever to be in Jane Austen’s league - who could? So I just carry on and write the novel that I feel compelled to and try to make it as good as I can. Meanwhile, I can read and learn, from her letters as well as from her novels.
Question 3
Her writing habits - I’m not quite sure. I’ll have to think about that. With Christmas and the snow-extended school holidays it seems a long time since I did any proper writing. That’s probably enough for now. I should do some writing…
I have had some really nice emails from an American writer. Her name is Chris Stewart and she is doing a brilliant project , inspired by Sense and Sensibility, which involves reading along with Marianne Dashwood. Anyway, Chris asked me some questions and I thought I might try to answer them here…they are big questions and I’m sure that my answers will change as my time here goes on.
1. How has being in Jane Austen’s house affected your writing and your feelings about yourself as a writer?
2. Is it inspiring being there, or do you feel any pressure to produce something amazing or a mixture of both?
3. Have you adopted any of Jane Austen’s writing habits under the influence of the house (and possibly her presence!) or do you share similarities in your style of writing already?
4. What projects are you working on, and does Jane Austen figure in any of them?
5. If you were doing a project such as mine, what would you be interested in learning/doing?
Well, I think the first thing I have noticed is how 200 years now seems to be such a short time, and I think this has changed the way I feel about everything.
If 200 years isn’t so long, the past and its people are more present, and less seems to be lost. I find this comforting. One of the odd and lovely things about being here is that some of the objects in the Museum are things that were once owned by my great aunts. For instance, a box that was carved by Jane’s brother, Francis, was, until not that long ago, something that my Aunt Diana kept cereal box and cracker toys in for the amusement of visiting children; and some of the smaller portraits I recognize as having once hung on their walls. I only had vague ideas of who these various Austens were when I was growing up - I probably wasn’t paying attention - but here they are now. It is as though I am following them round and we have all ended up where we should be. I do have this feeling - probably quite misplaced - of coming home. And this is ridiculous - why should I pay more attention to this branch of my family tree than any others? There are thousands of people on the same level of the family tree as me. And I have some really interesting Scottish ancestors too, including a captain who was shipwrecked on an island and was rescued to tell the tale. I had an Indian grandmother who died when my father was tiny - we know close to nothing about her. These stories are what I’m interested in writing about at the moment. It will be fiction, but the novel I’m trying to finish follows the story of five generations of a family from Hampshire to Canada and India and back again. I’m only going as far back as the Edwardians and the novel isn’t to do with Jane Austen.
I’m interested in ideas about home and belonging (and not belonging). But I can see that it is rather convenient of me to feel the pull of Jane Austen’s cottage in Chawton, which happens to be gorgeous and only 27 miles from where I live, rather than the houses in Scotland or India or Canada or the north of England where other ancestors dwelt.
My novel is about (I hope) the pull of places. It was going to be called Dancing on The Boat but now it is called The Home Museum.
Being here has really helped with the writing of it. It has helped me to shape it. I love being in a museum and I have been so interested to see what goes on behind the scenes. I’m so interested in the whole business of curating - it seems to me to be rather like what I have to do with the huge amount of material that I have to work with; and what any novelist has to do when they decide which things, scenes, conversations, images and so on are going to be included in the novel. I guess I’m also interested in the way that we curate our own lives, the stories and memories that we keep, the things that we decide are significant and those that we discard deliberately or without a thought
The fourth generation person in my novel is a library assistant (a fantasy job of mine) but volunteers to help in a rather dusty local museum (hence the title) which was once the house where her great grandparents lived. My fictional museum is nothing like The JAHM which is never ever dusty. I’m still a long way from it being finished, and who knows if anybody will want to publish it, but my aim now is that the semi-amorphous mass will become a sleek creature by August 1st - an evolution from amoeba (the single cell of the first idea) through countless stages (creatures who dwell where there is no light) to the colossal squid of my ambition and dreams.
Question 2
It is inspiring being here. I think everybody finds that - that is why there are so many dedicated volunteer stewards. It would be hard not to find the house and garden and its setting restful and beautiful and so inspiring - there's peace and holy quiet here. There is space to think here. It must be bit different for Louise and Ann and the other people who work so hard here, ensuring that this wonderful atmosphere is maintained, but of course they are here because they love the place and the wonderful spells it casts.
I don’t find it intimidating, though. I don’t expect ever to be in Jane Austen’s league - who could? So I just carry on and write the novel that I feel compelled to and try to make it as good as I can. Meanwhile, I can read and learn, from her letters as well as from her novels.
Question 3
Her writing habits - I’m not quite sure. I’ll have to think about that. With Christmas and the snow-extended school holidays it seems a long time since I did any proper writing. That’s probably enough for now. I should do some writing…
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Snowy New Year Message.
Well, Happy New Year from what seems to have become a rather feeble blog. Today (Wednesday 6th January) was meant to be the next meeting of the House's Writing Group, but I'm afraid it is just too snowy and the roads are just too treacherous. So, dear reader, in the unlikely event that you were planning on battling your way through the snow to get to the Museum this afternoon, please don't. I will fix another time for another Wednesday soon and let people know.
Hope you are somewhere warm and dry with a good book,
Rebecca.x.
Hope you are somewhere warm and dry with a good book,
Rebecca.x.
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