The Great Book for Girls

Loving all things 30s, I could not resist this book in the local Oxfam shop. Yes it's old. Yes it leaves my fingers dusty each time I open the heavy pages. Yes it smells musty. But to me all these things are good!

Published in 1931, The Great Book for Girls is mainly short stories, with a few poems here and there. The black and white drawings have been lovingly coloured in with pencils by a previous owner. Neat job, girls!

As for the stories - well, what ripping yarns, as one of the characters might say! They have titles like 'Dimsie Wins Through' and 'The Fourth Form Entertainment'. The girls in the stories are all so busy and active, they almost wear me out. They go sailing, camping, trekking and have lots of adventures in the jolly-hockeysticks type of fashion. Several of the stories are set in boarding schools. I used to adore boarding school stories when I was young, though I don't know why as I would probably have hated it if I had ever had to go.

And yes, the writing style is a little dated, or 'politically incorrect' to our modern ears. I mean, we wouldn't refer to someone as a 'village idiot', for instance, would we. We most likely wouldn't call somebody 'a brick' either, even in a nice way. But for traditional stories, with a beginning, middle and end, this eighty year old book has given me a lot of entertainment this past week. I shall be looking out for more!

Winter sunrise

Don't you think it's a miracle how that sun keeps coming up every day?

Acrostics

One of the recent tasks in our writers' group was to write an acrostic in three minutes. What's an acrostic? Well, what you do is choose a word and write it vertically down the page. Then from each letter you write a word or line horizontally, with the aim of describing the vertical word. So if I wrote a very basic acrostic for Harvey I could say something like this:

Highly

Adored
Retriever,
Velvet
Eyes
Yearning.

Here you can read more about acrostics, their use in mnemonics, poetry and coded messages. The thing is, once you start playing with acrostics they soon become addictive! Try it. It's fun!

Chasing rainbows

Picture of a double rainbow we saw here a few weeks ago. Squint closely. There are two rainbows there, honestly, although the second is quite faint above the brighter one. I think this is supposed to bring luck!

We were not so lucky when the new next door neighbour ran into our car on Sunday. Is this judgement on me for laughing when a neighbour down the road reversed into THEIR neighbour's car?

Monday brought an email from People's Friend, accepting a story, so I am in forgiving mood. This story has been a long time in the telling. I began writing it a whole two years ago. Something was wrong with it - but what? I didn't know. Into the drawer it went. This summer I took it out again. Straight away I saw that one of the main characters wasn't really a very nice person. Not only was he making the story too complex, he also had a snide air about him which was totally wrong for a People's Friend story. Once I'd written him out, all my characters were much happier and able to get on with their lives.

Maybe a bit of the rainbow's luck did fall on Zigzag Road after all. Just as well, since I had a shoe splurge at the weekend!

Wishing you rainbows - especially double ones.

Poetry, please

I recently joined a lovely local writers' group and am really enjoying it. One of the tasks on the programme for our autumn term is to write a brief review of a favourite contemporary poet.

Now, while I dip into poetry now and then, I can't say I have a favourite poet - ancient or modern! Following ideas from my blogfriends in relation to pasta free lasagne, now I am asking for suggestions on poets. Which contemporary poets are worth further attention? I have 3 weeks before this task is due, so there's no mad rush, but as this area is unfamiliar to me I'd like to start reading around soon. If anyone can throw in some names as a starting point I'd be eternally grateful. It's good to have the challenge of learning about something new. That's always one of the exciting things about autumn isn't it.

Quote of the day

"I do like lasagne. Just as long as there's no pasta in it."

(If anyone can suggest how to make lasagne without pasta please do tell me!)

Will there be unicorns?

I read a story the other day. It was written with a beautiful, light touch, full of magic and sparkle. For several pages I was swept along in this fairytale world. The writer could have introduced giants and unicorns, and I would have believed every word because the story was written with such sincerity of emotion.

But then, in the last paragraph, it became clear that there was in fact a rational explanation for how all the 'magic' happened. I was devastated. It was like finding out Santa Claus doesn't exist, or that it wasn't the Tooth Fairy who left a sixpence beneath your pillow. Or, it was like one of those escapades where the main character wakes up and realises 'it was all a dream'. This wasn't a magazine story, so there was no fiction editor in the background insisting the events had a plausible cause. Maybe the writer felt they were straining credibility too much by pursuing the magical theme right to the end. Or perhaps they lost confidence in their original idea. Either way, it was a shame.

Firstly this made me think that maybe everyone wants to believe in magic. Even someone like me, who hardly ever reads fantasy. But if a story grabs me then it doesn't matter what genre it's in. If it's well written and I connect with it then I will read on. If the story features magic, I want it to stay magical right until that final full stop. I somehow feel cheated when reality snatches away this wonderful, mystical world the writer has persuaded me exists.

The second thing I thought was how we have to keep pushing our ideas further to see where they can go. If some of our ideas are a bit 'off the wall' sometimes it's tempting to dismiss them as too fanciful. Yet the most interesting things seem to happen when we follow those ideas and see where they take us, instead of playing safe.

So, this week I'll be playing with my latest off the wall, fanciful, daft idea. It's quite exciting. There might be unicorns!