~ A Book Review: The Secret Island, by Enid Blyton ~

I have finished reading my third novel for 2023, The Secret Island, by Enid Blyton. I know, I’ve reviewed books by this British author before. But, considering Blyton authored 600 books in her career, they are bound to pop up now and then. The Secret Island was first in The Secret Stories series, which follows the adventures of four spunky kids, Peggy, Mike, Nora, and Jack. As a child, I remember loving The Secret Seven and The Famous Five because capable, resourceful, brave kids solved the mysteries. They were great child-led stories.

The central premise of The Secret Island is that ill-treated children run away to an island and manage to live there without anyone discovering them until someone does. Captured my imagination straight away the idea of the kids escaping from their terrible lives by being clever and figuring out how they could live on an island, and then doing it. The idea was novel, and the various ways the kids figured out how to feed and shelter themselves and structure their days on the island seemed well thought out. A kid would love this.
Our story begins with Mike, Peggy, and Nora Arnold shipped off to live with relatives after their parents are killed in a plane crash. Their aunt and uncle make the siblings work like slaves and mistreat them. Likewise, an orphan living next door called Jack is being neglected and ill-treated by his grandfather. Jack tells the Arnold children about a secret island. The children long to escape, so when their friend Jack takes them to visit the deserted island, they dream of living there.

From that moment on, the children plan their escape meticulously, thinking about what they will need to take to survive in isolation. Then, they slowly – frankly – nick it all. Once they have gathered enough supplies, they make a daring dash for freedom. It’s exciting, and – spoiler alert – they make it. The four kids organize themselves and make a dreamy life on the island. They build a house out of willow, make wonderfully comfortable beds of heather and bracken, and grow their vegetables.
It’s satisfying for the reader to see the kids succeed despite the difficulties. It’s interesting to note that whenever the kids run out of necessities, they sneak back onto the mainland and steal things from the cruel Aunt, Uncle, and Grandfather! Over these thefts, the children have no qualms. They raid both gardens on several occasions. And Jack even nicks his cow, Daisy, and some hens, sneaking them back to the island for fresh milk and eggs! The children are doing so well as cultivators and “borrowers” they’re stretching the seams of their clothes and are happier than they’ve ever been. It’s morally questionable, yet, they are never “taught a lesson” about these misdemeanours, the way they probably would be in modern literature.

I would say The Secret Island is one of my all-time favourite Enid Blyton stories. An island where kids rule? C’mon.
Apart from the day, the invaders come to the secret island at the end, the bulk of the story belongs to the minutiae of the kids’ idyllic life there. These formerly abused children don’t have to go to school. They don’t have to work. Every day, they attend to simple needs: creating food, maintaining their shelter, swimming to bathe then drying off in the sun, and so on. Enchanting and delightful.
Of course, they get found out in the end. Intruders arrive and interrupt their happy idyll and bring the kids back to the real world. I was disappointed the gang had to leave their sanctuary. It was sad when they said goodbye, and also a little odd that they abandoned the cow. LOL. Not sure if Enid dropped the ball there or what, but we won’t hold it against her. Overall, this is a charming story and a lovely lil trip down memory lane.

The Secret Island was first published on January 1, 1938, by Basil Blackwell. It was illustrated by E.H. Davie. Enid Mary Blyton, (1897—1968), was an up-and-coming author in high demand. She had abandoned her studies in music to train as a schoolteacher and had worked as a teacher and governess, but her stories and poems brought her to the attention of the public. She switched to full-time writing in 1924, becoming a tremendously popular author of stories, poems, plays, and educational books for children.
During her career, Blyton came under some criticism for using the same typical adventure template for her stories, for having stereotyped characters and a simplistic viewpoint. However, fans continued to love her unreservedly, and new editions of her stories continue to appear today. By the early 21st century, Enid Blyton’s books had sold some 400 million copies and been translated into at least 90 languages. The readers are always the final arbiters of good stories, and that’s the way it should be.
This book is what my sister-in-law would call cool beans.
My rating: Two and a half stars

Talk to you later.
Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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Reading is dreaming with your eyes open. ~ Anon

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~ Cyclone Gabrielle ~

The cyclone came as promised. Cyclone Gabrielle started late last week as a tropical storm in the Coral Sea and intensified quickly to a category 3, fed by warm oceans. “Concerns about the storm as it moved down to New Zealand have come to fruition,” said Niwa meteorologist Ben Noll. “The inverted barometer effect is associated with very deep low-pressure systems. The winds around low-pressure systems swirl in towards the centre. Where those winds meet, they rise,” said Noll. “That causes the air to rise and can cause the sea to rise.” (from Newsroom)
Reading this, I didn’t have any reaction. Having survived the last big storm on Jan 27, which caused widespread flooding and the loss of four lives, I felt somewhat storm-weary. When I heard the news of Cyclone Gabriella, I didn’t take it in, and I didn’t feel afraid. My nephew told me, “They are saying it’s a Category 3, that it could be far worse than the last cyclone, and we might get winds up to 300 km an hour.” Even then. It was like my senses were still stunned by the flooding, and I hadn’t fully come down to Earth. There was no energy left for fear.

We received warnings from Civil Defence days beforehand. And we prepared ourselves. We were as ready as we could be. My friends and I had put away anything in our yards we thought could become airborne, and we’d lifted things off the ground in our garages and so on. The boys and I had small bags packed by the door. Apart from that, all we could do was sit and wait. After days of waiting for it to arrive, we started to get strong gusts of wind. But the rain never hit us here. The last time it pelted down, we flooded, fearing for our lives, and this time it rained but not heavy and not for long. However, the same could not be said for other parts of the country as the cyclone wreaked a trail of destruction, causing terrible flooding and potentially billions of dollars worth of damage. I think the current death toll is five, while many others are still missing. The landslides have cut off many towns from food supplies, and downed trees have cut the power and internet, so hundreds of people can’t contact their loved ones to let them know they are alive.

Since the cyclone hit, I’ve stayed glued to my news feed watching the live updates. There has been footage of people throwing out their food after three days without power and people sleeping side by side on cot beds in evacuation centres. Clips of people rescuing folks stranded on their roofs, folks carrying animals out of flooded fields, volunteers making food, and helping others. Especially saddening were the news stories about the two volunteer firefighters, one in critical condition in a hospital, the other killed in a landslide. My heart goes out to their families. I feel moved by people who are true heroes for their communities like these guys. They remind me to believe in the good of humanity.
Crazy. While the North Island of New Zealand gets lashed by torrential rainfall and tropical storms, the central part of the South Island has been experiencing severe drought, and everyone is desperately trying to conserve water. They have too little; we have too much. Everything seems so unfair. I heard it said once, that only when you stop seeing life in terms of fairness and unfairness can you be a grownup. Guess that makes me still a kid; I feel how unfair it is that bad things happen to people working to make a living and struggling to make ends meet. A lot of people have lost everything, and my heart breaks for them.

This is not to say the first cyclone has been forgotten, either. After all, it only happened three weeks ago. I attended a school meeting last night and was asked by about five different people throughout the evening, “Where were you when the flood happened?” It is as if it helps us move on to tell our stories and listen to other people’s experiences of the same event. It deepens our empathy, therefore, our connections.
There is no doubt about it the cyclones have been a shock. I gather that a lot of us, like myself, have lived multiple years on the planet without ever experiencing a natural disaster. Now, we’ve racked up two in under a month. I feel a lot of empathy for everyone involved and a ton of gratitude to the first responders, and the emergency personnel, who are often voluntary, and who put their lives on the line to help others. Thank you. We love you.
What about you. Have you ever lived through a tropical storm or been in a natural disaster?

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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“We don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, war, or necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome.” – Isabel Allende

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~ A Flood Story ~

I would have posted this last week, but it was the Insecure Writer’s Support Group’s monthly question, so the story became delayed by a week. On the 27th Jan the rain that had been “persisting down,” as my father used to say, fell more steadily towards late afternoon. Another tropical cyclone was expected, and a heavy rainfall watch was in place. Nevertheless, my friends were gathering that evening for dinner. I wobbled down to the garage in heels, carrying a heavy oven dish of the blueberry apricot crumble I had made for dessert, plus a paper bag bearing vanilla bean ice cream and two tubs of thickened cream. I had to splash through water to get to the car, thinking, that’s odd. I’ve never had to do that before. Then I noticed sheets of water streaming off the higher ground beneath the house onto the concrete pad the car was sitting on, something I had not seen in my 58 years of living here.
Undeterred, I backed out of the garage and headed slowly down the road, having to breach a small lake of surface water at the end. I turned right and drove halfway along through swirling muddy water. The thought in my mind was, your instincts are telling you to stay home, you idiot. Why are you still driving? Through the sideways curtains of torrential rain, I glimpsed a line of cars ahead, waiting to get through as a little Suzuki car bravely pushed through the sizeable lake spanning the intersection to turn into our street.

Holy crap. I knew I needed to get home as fast as possible. I turned around and ploughed my way through, making it back to the saturated garage about five minutes later.
Man, was I grateful to be home. But would we be safe? When I told the teenagers indoors about the street flooding, the youngest son and his girlfriend immediately galvanized into action. He needed to take his girlfriend home before the 6 p.m. curfew. The pair raced out the door slinging on raincoats, hoping vainly to catch the last bus, which their mobiles informed them was “five stops away.” I told them to run, as I had seen the state of the roads.

And from then on, I worried about them.

40 minutes later, the youngest son rang. They had realized the bus would not be able to make it through the rising water, so the pair of them had trekked to the nearest shops, sometimes wading through water up to their waists. They were wet, scared, and tired. The girlfriend’s mother was on her way to pick them up.
Thank goodness!
20 minutes later, the son rang again. Every road they took to return to the girlfriend’s house was blocked or flooded. They were still trying to get through.
At this point, I was praying. There was nothing else I could do besides giving instructions on the phone. I was at home, looking after my son with Down syndrome. Luckily, he sleeps through anything. I, on the other hand, spent a miserable evening. The rain pelted down harder and harder. I have never seen rainfall like it – the term “biblical proportions” sprang to mind. I kept checking the scene outside the house and listening to the radio. Friends and family on social media shared videos of people riding a bus home with water sloshing around their ankles and a bus floating sideways across the road. There were photos of the airport and the local supermarket completely awash.

Looking out the windows often and constantly reading the live updates on the news, I began to panic. Though I am an optimistic person, I found myself thinking about the real possibility of being flooded out of our homes, maybe evacuated, maybe loss of life and I was shaking all over terrified. I feared for my friends, and my extended family living across the city, including my eldest son and granddaughter. I also feared for my elderly neighbours, the white-haired couple and the grandmother on her own who live at the bottom of the street. At one stage, I donned a coat and gumboots to check the water level outside. It was a relief to see that it had not changed and everyone was still safely above the water level.
You can imagine it was a long night.
Finally, I got the news my son and company had arrived safely at the girlfriend’s house. They were straight into hot showers and promised me they would eat a healthy meal. Through social media family and friends chatted online together sharing updates, which is how I knew everyone else I loved was at home and dry.
Thank heavens!

I woke the next morning thrilled to find we were still in our beds and the rain had abated. I felt humbled, grateful for our lives and that our homes were still standing, grateful and aware of our blessings, and very grateful that the rain had stopped. We had 245 mm in 24 hours. It was officially our “wettest day on record.” Since then, we have had blue skies and sunshine. Strange weather, man! I went out and about the neighbourhood, looking at the damage. Folks were cleaning their yards, and I passed a few groups gathered on sidewalks or outside houses, chatting with brooms in their hands and rubbish bins. Everywhere people stood talking. I’ve been chatting with folks, too. It struck me that disasters make people connect with other people. I know the names of two more neighbours I didn’t know before. It helps to know the name of the folks living cheek-by-jowl with you when the chips are down. We’ve been reminded that we need each other, I guess, which is a beautiful thing to come out of this disaster. My thoughts are with the families of the victims. There were four dead. It has been horrendous for us, but somehow, we got through it.

As an introvert, I require time to come to terms with everything. It might take a week to sift through the contents of my mind. Secondarily, I need to clean the garage. Now, another cyclone is on the way. Whewee!
2023 – how’s everyone else finding it so far?

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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“You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.” – Maya Angelou

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~ IWSG: Your Word for 2023? ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post on the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organizers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

January 4 question – Do you have a word of the year? Is there one word that sums up what you need to work on or change in the coming year? For instance, in 2021 my word of the year was Finish. I was determined to finish my first draft by the end of the year. In 2022, my word of the year was Ease. I want to get my process, systems, finances, and routines where life flows with ease and less chaos. What is your word for 2023?
My sister and I had already decided this week that our word for 2023 would be synchronicity. I finished writing the rough draft for my next book at the beginning of last year and started working on editing it. Whereas in the past, I have poured decades of my life into editing my stories, there was a decided impulse this time to make things simpler. So halfway through 2022, I formed a writing group, The Fabulatores, and began editing my book through these sessions with other writers. I am nearly halfway through polishing the manuscript this way. We took a hiatus before Christmas and re-adjourn on January 20. I intend to complete running through the material with The Fabulatores this year and then turn it over to the professional proofreader and editor for the polishing steps.

Am I hopeful to publish before Christmas? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. But the difference now is I’m not willing to wreck myself. The biggest lesson I learned last time was that nearly all my ills related to the deadline I had set for publication. The moral of the self-publishing story is do not set unrealistic deadlines. Publishing a book takes waaaaaay longer than you think it will. Therefore, knowing that up front this time, I won’t make the publication deadline on a date set by wishful thinking. Trying to meet the date I had slated for the book release party nearly killed me in 2020 and made everyone around me miserable. My youngest son begged me not to write and publish another book because he didn’t want to go through it again. I felt sorry for my family, friends, and everyone who had to deal with me. I made my apologies and resolved that I would never self-publish another book, at least not in that working-around-the-clock way ever again.

The quandary was how to do it differently?
My general feeling about how the word synchronicity applies to my fiction writing in 2023 is this. From now on, I will try not to push my work to publishable standards in a vanishing amount of time but to allow for the production to happen more naturally. Not to run around like a headless chicken the whole time but to manage running everything else in my life calmly. It’s about relaxed, organic, sustained effort on the goal while maintaining an attitude of humility and patience. I want to allow time and grace for the synchronicity to happen. I’m hoping that if I keep the Ace up my sleeve of a flexible publication date, I can produce my next book without poisoning the goodwill of everyone else in the family! That’s the hope. Wish me luck!
How about you? What is your word for 2023?
Happy New Year, everyone!

Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
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A great success is the cumulative effect of many small opportunities seized and wisely used. ~ Lord Wakefield

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~ FAMILY TIME IS IMPORTANT ~

Covid caused a lot of division in many ways. One of the ways it affected us was that our family split down the middle and the two sides stopped talking. We have operated in two camps throughout all the trials and tribulations of the last two years. It’s been so sad and unnecessary. We didn’t even come together for Christmases. We’ve missed celebrating one another’s birthdays and other milestone events. In 2020, I released my trilogy, The Chronicles of Aden Weaver, while we were scattered to the winds. It sucked when only five family members showed up.

This situation was at the forefront of my mind this week. My family has been split asunder for two years. Life has not been the same. In the diagram created by Abram Maslow, called the ‘Hierarchy of Needs,’ one of the levels of basic human requirements are the security needs followed by those of love and belonging. A well-functioning family fulfills those basic needs. There is nothing healthy about family battles. They fundamentally weaken us.
What changed the stalemate? We gathered together for a wedding recently, and it caused a thaw in relations between the factions. The door opened to a reunion, and it was because one member was brave enough to “just invite everybody and let them deal with it.” Everyone dolled up and gathered in one place for this glorious occasion. We hung out together for half a day and remembered, Oh, that’s right, it’s fun being together. Oh, that’s right, we’ve spent years of birthdays, Christmases, and parties together. Oh, that’s right, I love these people.

The next thing that happened was we started discussing a family vacation together this summer and even booked accommodation. How’s that for something to be grateful for? I have such good memories of holidays gone past. We used to travel most summers while my parents were alive to gather at their seaside cottage for Christmas and happily spend the summer break there till after New Year. We’d spend whole days at the beach. In the evenings, the parties used to go into the wee hours, with music, laughter and talking. There were card games, and rounds of Cribbage. Dad would tell a story and sing a ballad or two. Mum would do an interpretive dance, which always made us laugh. There were board games of scrabble and Trivial Pursuits. All the things.
The night skies in the Coromandel Peninsula are exceptionally clear and have a following among stargazers worldwide. At some stage during the evenings, we would go outside when it was dark and look at the stars. There is something otherworld and magical about seeing so much more of the Milky Way at a decent elevation.

Mum’s and dad’s log cabin was sold after dad died. Then Covid happened. The family went separate ways, vowing never to talk to one another again. Then two years of estrangement ended recently with the family wedding. This summer will be the first time we’ve gathered together as a family for a seaside vacation in years. I feel gratitude that the truce is in full effect. To think of our family coming back together again gives me a feeling of succour, strength, and stability.
All this made me realize how much we need our families. Sometimes it takes forgiveness. Sometimes it takes a willingness to let things go. Sometimes it takes preparedness to back away from the argument plus acceptance that that’s okay. But, whatever it takes, the effort is worth it. We need that family bonding time, that love and support. They call this ‘the age of anxiety.’ What a soothing balm it is to the harried modern soul to have one’s family intact and functioning.

A year or two ago I would never have thought this would be possible. Covid caused the division, but we’re not letting Covid have the last word. Even when sometimes family rifts seem unsurpassable, I have learned that all is not lost. Even the most torn-apart family can heal if both factions reach the point of wanting to heal. We needed to step back from our differences and remember the common ground we do share as a family. We needed to be prepared to let bygones be bygones. We needed to attain the point of saying, Life is too short for this. We’ll never be perfect but we are finally coming back together. So, now I know it can be done. Take heart.
Family time is important. Now, more than ever. What about you? Did you manage to stick together throughout the pandemic?

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol

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Eventually, you will end up where you need to be, with who you’re meant to be with, and doing what you should be doing. ~ unknown

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~ IWSG: Genres ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post on the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organizers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG, and the hashtag is #IWSG.

This month’s question:
What genre would be the worst one for you to tackle and why?
There are a few genres I would be too scared to tackle, and some I know I should never attempt. I wanted to write romantic novels at one point when I was a lot younger, and I made it to the halfway point with a contemporary romance set in the South Island of New Zealand when I ran out of steam. It felt like a case of mentally choosing a direction, but my heart wasn’t in it, so I couldn’t sustain the energy levels needed to finish the project. As Gina Cole said at the launch of her book Na Viro last Friday night at the New Zealand Society of Authors meeting, “Writing a book is tough.” Short, sweet, and to the point! All the fates have to be aligned, and your energy has to come from the inexhaustible fuel supplied by conviction. You can’t fake story writing. It needs to come from a deep source within or the well runs dry pretty quick.

I wouldn’t dare write literary fiction because I neither read the genre nor enjoy it. Throughout the recent writers’ festival, I sat in on several live interviews or “conversations,” and two of them were with authors of highly-praised literary novels. Those were the only events where I felt out of place. Truth is, I’m not as intelligent as I look. The thought that went through my head multiple times while watching those interviews was, “I think this conversation is above my pay grade.” A lot of the points they made did not compute.
Likewise, horror and all variations thereof leave me cold. It’s another personal no-go zone. I don’t have the stomach for horror. The only horror story I’ve read – apart from critiquing my friend, Maria Cisneros-Toth’s book, Spooky Tales – was Ghost Story by Stephen King (Peter Straub). The latter’s novel freaked me out big time, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Ghost Story afterward. I didn’t like feeling afraid in my own time because of a book, and it put me off reading horror altogether. The only horror movie I’ve ever seen was Dawn of the Dead when I was a teenager. I lasted five minutes watching that movie, and then I stood up and walked out of the cinema. It’s the only time I’ve ever done so. And I’ve not seen a single horror film since. The genre is not my bag. I don’t want nasty images replaying in my mind long after a movie is finished. And the same goes for the darker sorts of fiction. I don’t want to read threatening material or have it cloud the bright sky of my imagination. It feels like I need to protect my good spirits and keep my environment positive. My friend would call it ‘keeping my armour polished.’

Another genre I avoid is picture books. There was an extended period in my twenties when I wrote picture books for the 0 – 5-year-old range. I spent at least a decade developing the stories and illustrating them. Looking back on this time, I learned a lot about writing through labouring under the constraints of the form. The economy of language and tightness of composition is essential, along with an ear for the rhythm of the spoken word. However, I prefer using lots of words, and I felt confined by the genre and miserable. Eventually, the limits of the form began to feel like a straightjacket, and I felt driven to escape.

Alternatively, my first ever experiment writing middle fiction was like lighting a flame. With more generous word limits, I could have fun with words and spend more time getting to know my characters. I could explore the plot, the story arc, and so on. The natural fit for me was to write fantasy because that is the genre I read as a child and still like to read now. When I think back, it wasn’t a matter of consciously choosing what I would write at that point. I picked up the pen and that’s what came out. Fantasy middle fiction fit like a glove, and I’ve been playing happily in my sandbox ever since.
What about you? What genre do you avoid? Which do you embrace?

Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
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Let it be easy. ~ Anon

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~ Why Critique? ~

I have finished the first story in the next children’s series I’m writing and have done some preliminary editing. I’m feeling tentatively happy with the story as it stands, therefore it is time to share my story with other people to get feedback. This is the point I traditionally reach with every book, where I need to field it out to beta readers via a writing group. I want to know if the story is working. Where is it weak? And, the dreaded question, do you want to read more?
It’s easy to rag on yourself when you’re self-employed in a creative industry like writing fiction. I jump to compare myself to other more professional author friends, who pen their masterpieces and then move straight onto professional editing services. These authors are so secure in their prowess, that they go from writing to publication, without any need for a middle man to grease the tracks. I, on the other hand, acknowledge that I need feedback – a focus group! – first. The grumpy voices in my brain say, Why do you need a writing group? Let me pick this apart.

What are critique groups? Critique groups are friends willing to give critique in return for feedback on their work.
Why use a critique group? In 2004 I joined the newly-formed children’s writing collective, KiwiWrite4Kids. I remember asking one of the founders, Maria Gill if she had any tips. She said the best advice she could give me was to join a critique group. It sounded like good advice, although I will admit it took me years to act on it.
Lucky for me, I finally joined a critique circle in the 90s, because looking back, it was a turning point in my writing life. Which is not to say it’s easy. Criticism is hard to take. It was a jolt at first, having several other writers pick my story apart in a face-to-face situation. I didn’t imagine I’d stick around for long. But, the fact is that critique groups are on the fast track to growth. It didn’t take me long to figure out I was learning in leaps and bounds. How could I walk away?

The critique group process pushed me out of my comfort zones and made me aware of the reader. It made me accountable and focus far more on the writing.
The dynamic of critiquing other people’s work and then receiving feedback on mine changed my stories profoundly. I came to value the process highly and could see why Maria Gill had made the recommendation.
After a year of traveling to the city once a month to attend the in-person meetings, I left the in-person group and joined forces with a number of American authors to swap critiques online. And I have been a member of many online groups since then: The Magnificent Five, The Gang of Four, The Two Amigos, and The Inconsolable Pen.
This week I met up with my aspiring writer friend, Jane Doe. Remember her? She had always wanted to write books. Turns out, I have more than one friend who feels that way. When two more of my friends from Toastmasters learned Jane Doe and I were preparing to swap critique, our writing group swiftly gained two new members.

Exactly three days ago, we kicked off the new critique group over tea and coffee at a little old-fashioned cottage cafe. There were three of us present. Our fourth member is currently overseas. The three of us figured out the ground rules and collaborated on how to run our critiques. Every three weeks we will get together – yes, in person, – isn’t it wonderful to be able to do such normal things? We will each print out four copies of our chapters, then read them aloud while everyone else reads the printouts, and receive critique verbal and written. Yay! It is exciting to be at this point with my story. I can’t wait to see it flower into fullness.
The name for our writing group is still on the table. We are considering the merits of Inkplotters, Inky Fingers, or Fabulatores (Latin for storytellers). What do you think? Do you like any of them or have a better suggestion?

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol

‘Everyone knows writers are only a limerick away from complete insanity.’ ~ Lisa Scott.

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~ IWSG: Art or Market ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post on the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organizers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG, and the hashtag is #IWSG.

August 3 question – When you set out to write a story, do you try to be more original or do you try to give readers what they want?
Whew! Talk about a challenging issue for authors, especially unpublished writers. When you’re starting out and unsure of yourself, you wonder do I follow my ideas or try to write for the bestselling genres? If an author wants a long career, can they afford to ignore the demands of the market? That is the million-dollar question.
When I started writing picture books in the 80s, agents and publishers said you couldn’t write about cats or dogs because they were overdone. Although that didn’t stop everyone else from writing about them. When I started writing children’s chapter books in the 90s, they warned against writing about witches or wizards for the same reason. Since then the Harry Potter phenomenon happened, so, yeah, thanks, guys. Several years ago, everyone was writing about vampires, then it moved on, and everyone wrote about zombies. I didn’t bother. Suffice to say, I stopped worrying about what the market wanted long ago.

I guess I’m fortunate. Being a hobby writer, sales are not my main focus.
I don’t strive for originality, either. Over the years, I’ve learned that the prose has to come through me in whatever state it arrives. Then I enjoy tinkering with the muse’s gift. After all, isn’t most of an author’s time spent on editing rather than the original free writing? It’s up to us how much we change the form.
At the editing stage, I appreciate the input of critique groups. I feel they give insight into how readers might think or feel. My sister always urges me to leave my stories untouched. Her point is that too many cooks can spoil the broth. I get it. However, I value the opinions of my critique group, feeling that at some stage, an author does need to consider their audience, even if they self-publish and their audience is few.

The danger is when you overdo the critique and meddle to the point that the essence of your creative intelligence gets diluted. Was it Terry Pratchett who said if you question the muse too much, you might stuff the whole thing up? I’m paraphrasing. But it was something like that.
Creativity is a divine splash of energy in our brains. My dear elderly friend, Meg, used to call it ‘the inspired whatevers.’ The writer’s task is to watch for when the muse might strike and endeavour to catch ‘the inspired whatevers’ straight off the ether. I remember one writing teacher telling us that we had to ‘grab the first word given, and from there, the rest would come.’ That has been true for me with my fiction. Sometimes, I have failed to catch the first word, which resulted in floundering, unable to get started. But, if I catch that first word, then we are away. The rest of the story tumbles out of the cosmos, ready and willing. That magical feeling occurs when art can happen, that tingling when you capture the spark. We authors act as the conduit for the sublime. As do all artists.

During the editing stage, we turn into alchemists. We try to bash and hammer the divine spark forcing it into a round hole. We take inspiration from the ether and try to make it fit within the standards of storytelling. I remain uncertain about how to get the balance right. How much do you add, and how much do you lose? It’s a constant balancing act.
How about you? Do you strive for originality with your writing? Or do you try to conform to current literary expectations? What do you think?

Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
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I’m never truly happy with everything I ever put out. There’s always something I can improve on. Phrase a sentence better. Make the message pop. Not be such a dullard. But facing that doubt is part and parcel of the writing life. ~ Stuart Danker

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~ Writing Because you Have to ~

This week I got together with a friend who wanted to discuss the story she’s been working on. Let’s call her Jane Doe. Jane has realized that she primarily wants to write books. As long as I’ve known Jane, she’s always mentioned her stories. She has finished the first draft of her debut novel. The problem she is up against now is she works full-time to pay the bills. Yet writing takes lots of time also. Jane works when she wants to be writing. Then, when she writes, the time disappears in a flash, and she has to go back to her job again.
Every author deals with this. Jane Doe is not the first. Over the years, dozens of people have told me, “I’ve always wanted to write a book.” And, these days, anyone can with easy access to numerous self-publishing avenues these days, from Amazon to Wattpad, to B&N Press, and aggregators, such as Draft2Digital and Smashwords for distribution. In the last five years, more books have been self-published than have been printed since the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1450. The market is simply glutted with fiction.

Ease of publication aside, writing is a brutal business. The reality (though I did not tell Jane these facts) is that only 5% of authors ever hit the big time and make enough money to retire from their day job. 95% of authors will sell no more than 100 copies of each book. There were a lot of bitter realities I did not tell Jane about. See the bite marks all over my tongue.
The only people who write books are starry-eyed newbies (who will never write more than one or two novels at most) or those poor souls who can’t NOT write and are therefore doomed to continue stabbing away at the keyboards all their live long days, whether they ever sell anything or not. Jane Doe is one of the latter. As am I. For us, “the time goes by in a flash” whenever we are writing. I remember, many years ago, telling my landlord about the time issue, and he said, “Yes, it’s like that when I’m painting. Time disappears into a black hole. You look up and realize hours have gone by.” I have repeated the black hole saying a lot over the years because when things strike you as ultimately true they bear repeating.

My friend Jane Doe and I are the same. We have no choice but to write, no matter what the outcome. We write when we’re happy, we write when we’re sad. We write when we have free time. We write when we’re busy. We write during the week, on the weekends, at night, and on holiday. We’re not chasing the Booker Prize, hoping to gain fans or fame, or to win a publishing deal (although all those things would be nice), we’re writing because it comes as naturally as breathing or thinking or talking.
For me, writing fiction started as a bid to escape from the mundanity of bottles and diapers as a seventeen-year-old stay-at-home-mum. It worked. There was no need for any other therapy. Having that creative outlet and being in the zone gave me positivity in an otherwise tricky situation. When you find the things you can do in this life that makes time disappear into a black hole, all is well with the world. In unstable times we need more sources of positive energy, these resources anchor us. They give us strength.

So I encourage Jane with all my might. I have offered to read her story to give some overall critique, and she will do the same for me. The first volume in my next series, currently written in the rough, needs a ton of work. So we embark on a journey together.
I have always been a writer. It’s a joy, a beloved part of me. Some of us write because we want to author a book one day. Some of us write because we have to. Hopefully, the end result is the same, and there is more beautiful, inspiring, revealing, humanizing prose in the world for people to imbibe. Because in times of stress, we turn to the arts.
What about you? What is the thing you most love to do?

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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“For me, euphoria is simply the act of waking up, making my coffee, and sitting down with a book and being able to read.” Elliot Page

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~ A Book Review: The Secret Forest, Enid Blyton ~

I have finished reading my seventh novel for 2022, The Secret Forest, by Enid Blyton. I have reviewed books by Enid Blyton before. She was a favourite author of mine from childhood. My jam used to be The Famous Five or The Secret Seven. As the great author wrote 800 books in her lifetime, there are always books of hers I have yet to discover. Recently, I bought a couple of novels in The Secret Stories series at a secondhand bookstore.

Though I was unfamiliar with the series, reading The Secret Forest, I immediately warmed to the Arnold children, Peggy, Mike, Nora, and Jack. Enid Blyton is such a straightforward, old-fashioned storyteller. Within the first pages, we have the setup when Prince Paul invites the Arnold children to the (made up) kingdom of Baronia for the holidays. It’s not just any old holiday. Prince Paul wants them to stay in his castle. Once the children are on holiday, we hear there are robbers abounding in the countryside, and we are alert that there is a mystery afoot. The Secret Forest is at the heart of the story, a completely inaccessible woodland in the depths of the Killimooin mountains. We meet Prince Paul’s family. Enid Blyton depicts the royal residences and lifestyle with simple vigour. She had a particular grip on understanding what children want to read. Beverly Cleary was the same and once described it as having the capacity to vividly recall being a child and write to the child she once was.

In The Secret Forest, the story’s climax builds with a steady tension as the children and their minders tangle with the robbers. When Prince Paul’s handlers are taken prisoner by the robbers, the boys go on a dangerous rescue mission. They enter the mountain through a hidden passage leading to the Secret Forest. The boys rescue the men, but on the way back, a ferocious storm nearly catches them in the rising floodwaters.
I felt the book had a darker feel than The Secret Seven or Famous Five adventures of my youth. The obstacles seemed almost insurmountable, and the threat of mother nature was the scariest of all. I’m sure if I’d stumbled on this series as a child, I would have devoured the other three – The Secret of Spiggy Holes, The Secret of Moon Castle, and The Secret Island in the twinkling of an eye. It’s exciting stuff.

Enid Mary Blyton (1897 – 1968) was born in London. She published a volume of poetry called Child Whispers in 1922. In 1925, she released her first full-length novel, The Enid Blyton Book of Bunnies. Her vast catalogue of titles is still being republished for the digital generation of young readers. Although modern readers reject her descriptions of gender, race, and class (her Noddy books featured golliwogs until they updated the later editions), there is a general curiosity and a fascination with these old books. Stories like The Secret Forest belong to another era when such things as racism and casual sexism went unquestioned. It gives us insight into the morals and beliefs of those times, which is fascinating in itself, like a slice of our collective past, although we may not agree with it.

These days you would stir major controversy if you wrote a boy character saying, ‘you girls can’t go on the adventure you’d just get into trouble.’ A modern audience reads stories such as these by Enid Blyton with curiosity to see what outrageous thing the characters say or do next.
That being said, reading The Secret Forest was like stepping back to childhood when things were so much simpler. I enjoyed the ride. Enid Blyton clearly knew how to tell a story. According to the Index Translationum, ‘Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare.’ In the UK, Enid Blyton still sells over one book a minute. It’s the sort of success any writer hopes to achieve. The Secret Forest is another volume from her legacy.
My rating: Three stars

Talk to you later.
Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” ~ Albert Einstein

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