An imminent delivery!

Should any readers be in the Monmouthshire area a week on Saturday - I'd love to see you at the launch of Once Upon A Time In Wales. Yes, after a very long gestation (exceeded, I think, only by elephants!) my latest book will actually reach delivery on May 4th. Monmouth Library will be hosting the launch, and the morning will be introduced by Robin Davies, chair of the Monmouth Welsh Society. I'm delighted to say that review copies have been very well received.  

After a short breather I'm now well into my next venture, which again is taking me on trips around the country. The weather hasn't been particularly kind of late (I spent a week on the coast at Nant Gwrtheyrn at the beginning of the month in howling gales and pouring rain) but it's hopefully looking up a bit now. Which is just as well as most of my journeying is on foot! I'm looking at pilgrimage, in its many senses - religious and secular - and it's proving both fascinating and challenging. It's a topic that has interested me for some time. The 600 odd miles of the Camino de Santiago might be a little beyond me now (though who knows ...) but journeying with intention to places of significance can be achieved in so many ways - and with all sorts of adventures as you go.

Writing and reading

I don't know about March "coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb"; with only four days left of the month, today started bitterly cold, then this afternoon we've had a mixture of thunderstorms and hail. The spring that Sunday promised appears to have gone AWOL .... 

March has actually flown past, with a lot of time spent on editing (which is, I think, the real hard work of writing!) and more research for my next book. I've also been trying to catch up on my reading list. I'm having a year of concentrating on Welsh authors and books about Wales. Although my Welsh is slowly improving, I'm afraid I still have to read most original texts in translation, but I'm enjoying the "greats", such as Saunders Lewis, immensely anyway. Currently I'm reading The Edge of Cymru by Julie Brominicks, another Welsh learner - it's part travelogue (describing her walk around the edges of Wales) and part discussion of the environmental issues particularly affecting our countryside. It's beautifully written and very thought-provoking, a good read.

I've also been reading Addlands by Tom Bullough, who tutored me at Ty Newydd a few years ago. It's a story about a mid twentieth century Radnorshire family, and - as a son of Radnorshire - Tom captures the landscape, the dialect and the life choices that had to be made brilliantly. Some time ago I remember being caught up in a debate about "writing what you know" and "writing what you imagine". To me the authenticity of the author's voice is paramount. The imagined may well have a vital role, woven into the tapestry of a story, but when a setting is a real place with a real history its presentation by an "insider" who knows the bones of it makes the world of difference. 

Learning from the experts

It's something about which I had to be very disciplined when writing Digging Up The Family too - reigning in material to make the project manageable and the book readable! Drawing up sensible parameters, and keeping within them, is so important in non-fiction, but it does mean that all sorts of fascinating avenues have to be bypassed and a lot of material "parked", shelved for future use. I'm hoping to start writing up my current project before Easter and a coherent structure is at last emerging from the plethora of research I've been working on. A day spent with the author Tiffany Murray at CreativeCardiff last week, looking at some of the issues she raised about writing her forthcoming memoir "My Family and Other Rock Stars", was certainly helpful.

Another interesting meeting last week was with the Welsh writer and broadcaster Ifor ap Glynn, who came to speak to the Uwch (higher level) learners at the Palmerston Centre in Barry. Ifor has won the Crown at the National Eisteddfod not once but twice and he's as inspirational to listen to as his work is to read. The closing date for entries for this year's Eisteddfod writing competitions is fast approaching and I think Ifor's presentation may well have prompted several of my learner colleagues to have a go! I certainly look back on my good fortune in succeeding in the Tregaron Eisteddfod two years ago with great satisfaction. And I find that writing creatively in a language that you're learning definitely helps you get to grips with the nuts and bolts of it!

Moving on

Yes, spring is on the way! I was up in mid Wales last week, where it never comes before March, but there were snowdrops out everywhere and even some early lambs in the fields. I was enormously cheered by it all. Although it's not been a bad winter so far, it seems to have gone on for ever, so the prospect of longer, warmer days is very welcome.

It's been a busy month and the final version of Once Upon A Time In Wales is now safely at the publishers. I have the greatest admiration for the writers who can move seamlessly on from one book to writing their next in a matter of days. That's of course what the publishers want of their successful authors, but some of us mere mortals perhaps need a bit of a breathing space to recuperate and regroup after putting so much time and energy into a book. I'm very much looking forward to my next venture and am well under way with the research, but it will be a little while yet before the end product sees the light of day!

Welcoming in 2024

After a troubled ending to 2023 for so many people around the world, here's to a new dawn and a happy, healthy and peaceful 2024 for us all. Despite the wet and chilly start today, I saw one or two signs in the Wye Valley this morning that spring is on the way - yes, we've got a couple of months of winter still to weather but they promise that brighter days aren't all that far away.

For the last couple of months I've been dogged by health issues but at last my book of Welsh folk tales, "Once Upon A Time In Wales", is about to head to the printers and it should then be out in the spring. Whereas my other books have reached fruition relatively quickly, for a variety of reasons this has been a project a long time in the making. Like all long-time bed-fellows, I shall miss it when it has actually left home! But there are a couple of new ventures calling and it's exciting to start the New Year exploring some new paths.