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Queen of the Typos  Posts: 2,857 Joined: Jan 2012 Thanked 3 times What I Read
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I'm still re-reading this and I've decided what I like about ti is that the characters are so believeable, they glow with vitality.
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Queen of the Typos Posts: 2,857 Joined: Jan 2012 Thanked 3 times What I Read
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RE: Bookclub: The discussion of Emotional Geology (contains spoilers)This post was last modified: 17 Mar 2012 09:31 AM by LindaGruchy.
(17 Mar 2012 09:07 AM)Linda Gillard Wrote:(17 Mar 2012 08:57 AM)LindaGruchy Wrote: I'm still re-reading this and I've decided what I like about ti is that the characters are so believeable, they glow with vitality. It was indeed, Linda. I sent the review to Transita and they forwarded it on to you. I ought to see if i can find it and post it up here. I have no idea where I saved it, though. Found it... under Reviews. How extraordinarily organised of me. It was the first book review I'd ever written. |
Senior Member  Posts: 200 Joined: Sep 2011 Thanked 0 times What I Read
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RE: Bookclub: The discussion of Emotional Geology (contains spoilers)Prophetic or wot? |
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Senior Member Posts: 200 Joined: Sep 2011 Thanked 0 times What I Read
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RE: Bookclub: The discussion of Emotional Geology (contains spoilers)(17 Mar 2012 10:02 PM)Notoriety Wrote: Is it depression when you don't write - or maybe a feeling of losing direction as writing is now such a central part of who you are and a huge goal for you. Thinks... this could be a hard job to retire from!! Do writers retire? I thought it was one of those jobs like acting (another of my previous careers) where you go on until you drop! I certainly don't see myself retiring. (I don't think my fans would let me anyway.) I think it's something like an addiction with me, in as much as when it's going well, it's the highest high I've known. I think it's also the strongest painkiller. You forget everything. For the whole of the 2 years it took me to write my 2nd novel, my father was dying of stomach cancer. Writing the novel - disappearing into that alternative world - was the only respite from the agony of watching him slowly waste away. If I don't write, it's depression that descends, also a kind of anxiety, a sense of my brain getting clogged up with too much stuff. Artistic constipation. Writing fiction keeps me regular.  I suppose it's the nature of my condition that I feel bombarded by data - sounds, sights, ideas. Writer's block is unknown to me. My problem is having too many ideas and trying to sort them all out. I often feel "the disk is full". Producing some sort of emotional print-out seems to help me feel more in control of my life, makes me feel I'm "processing" the mass of stuff in my head. With my 3rd novel STAR GAZING I decided to write about a congenitally blind female protagonist and about half the book is written from her "point of view". I had various conscious reasons for wanting to attempt this, but another has just occurred to me... I wonder if I wanted to take out sight to simplify the writing? Actually it didn't, because it was really hard removing "sighted-speak" from my vocabulary and what I lost in visual detail had to be made up with other sensory detail. But it felt like a refinement to me because it was one less sense for me to have to worry about. I felt as if my writing was more focused without the distraction of visuals. |
Posting Freak Posts: 621 Joined: May 2011 Thanked 1 times What I Read
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RE: Bookclub: The discussion of Emotional Geology (contains spoilers)This post was last modified: 18 Mar 2012 10:19 PM by Notoriety.
Gosh Linda what amazing reasons for writing. Most people say that about reading! You seem to be able to be in parallel worlds where both are you but the second helps you to manage the first. But the second obviously isn't private either and talks both to the first and to the rest of us! Sounds like a book about an author coming up - or is that one you've mentioned already?!Sorry to be leaving this conversation at this point as I'm "Morocco bound" in a few hours - with little chance of a wifi connection. By the way this discussion has gone it will still be running at the end of the month when we get back. Thanks Linda and everyone.  Tony Arab proverb: Only a fool lends his books and only a fool returns them.
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Senior Member Posts: 200 Joined: Sep 2011 Thanked 0 times What I Read
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RE: Bookclub: The discussion of Emotional Geology (contains spoilers)This post was last modified: 19 Mar 2012 12:55 AM by Linda Gillard.
Tom Stoppard said he wrote plays because he was incapable of making up his mind about anything at all. He could always see at least 2 sides to every question, so he wrote plays so that he could argue with himself. That's how I feel about writing really. I'm talking to myself, but it actually feels like talking to lots of different people. When it's going well I don't always know what the characters are going to say or do. They've sprung some surprises on me over the years! It can be a bit alarming at times, but I cling onto the characters' coat tails and just keep writing because I believe if you let it, the unconscious mind will write a better book than the conscious mind. But I'm also aware of talking to myself at a more conscious level. A LIFETIME BURNING is about male/female twins and I'm sure it must have arisen from my need to reconcile the 2 sides of my personality, a desire to achieve some kind of wholeness. In the novel the twins are so close, they live in a sort of symbiotic way and neither copes with the separation adulthood imposes. Readers have seen it as a book about incest but for me it was more about being only half a person, searching for your (literal) other half. Years ago I wrote an article, "Hearing the Voice of Reason" for RETHINK magazine. It was about managing my depression by characterising two mental attitudes, postive and negative. I refer to them - half in jest - as Sane Mind and Insane Mind. They both talk to me and I have to make sure I know which one I'm listening to! I think this "dialogue" possibly stems from the most useful thing my psychiatrist ever said to me which was, "Your central nervous system is letting you down". That was the first time I was able to see it wasn't "my fault" I was so ill. I wasn't to blame, my defective brain chemistry was. That was the beginning of real recovery for me - realising that Healthy Me was being rgularly sabotaged by Unhealthy Me. (I'm sure it was no coincidence, but around this time I started writing fiction.) I can't see how to attach the article to this post, but if anyone's interested I can send it to them. |
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Senior Member Posts: 200 Joined: Sep 2011 Thanked 0 times What I Read
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RE: Bookclub: The discussion of Emotional Geology (contains spoilers)“What should I have done, Rose? Tell her parents she died very slowly of hypothermia, in pain, alone, terrified, dangling on the end of a rope? That when she died, I cut the rope and dumped her body so that I could get down the mountain and save my own life? Should I have told them that? Because whatever I told Christina’s parents is what I had to tell everybody - our climbing mates, Shona, the bairns… There could only be one story and I didn’t know how to face Chris’ parents with the truth. I couldn’t see any point in telling the truth, causing them even more pain. But maybe that was just me protecting myself.” (Ch 17) Was Calum protecting himself? You can probably guess what I think from the way Rose responds, but I wanted Calum's dilemma to be a real one and I was prepared for a variety of reader reactions to this issue. |
Fountain of Wisdom Posts: 5,054 Joined: Aug 2010 Thanked 5 times What I Read
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RE: Bookclub: The discussion of Emotional Geology (contains spoilers)What comes to mind is when someone who is married has an affair and feels the need to tell their spouse - not because they believe in truth and honesty - but because it makes them feel better to be able to share their guilt. A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~Chinese Proverb
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