'The Dickens Boy' by Tom Keneally

Summary: The tenth child of Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, known as Plorn, had consistently proved unable 'to apply himself ' to school or life. So aged sixteen, he is sent, as his brother Alfred was before him, to Australia.

MY THOUGHTS: 

This is an excellent novel strongly based on fact, although I'm not a fan of the dull, minimalistic cover design. It doesn't do the story justice. But the novel itself is a great addition to my 2025 Aussie Book Challenge.

The main character, who tells his own story, is Charles Dickens' youngest son, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens. When he was a baby, his father nicknamed him Plornishmaroontigoonter, and our teenage protagonist still introduces himself as 'Plorn.' Poor Plorn is sent down to work on an Australian sheep station, ostensibly to help him apply himself, since he wasn't excelling at school in Britain. 

25-year-old Alfred Dickens, one of Plorn's elder brothers, has already lived in Australia for some time. Having been sent down by their 'guvnor' for similar reasons, Alfred is redeeming himself by working steadily as the manager of another sheep station. Alfred assures Plorn that if he tries to come across as a 'sportsman and a likeable chap,' the Australians will warm to him.

Plorn enters the colony hoping for some relief from his terrible secret. He's never read a single one of their father's books. His justification is the same as that given by many modern readers. The 'armies of paragraphs' crammed into them are offputting at the outset. Plorn has heard enough snippets over the years to do some believable bluffing, but he's in for a nasty shock. The people down in the colony are as hungry for his father's stories as any Briton could possibly be. For them, Charles Dickens is a cult hero, a megastar, a literary deity to stir up their latent sensibilities. 'Your father is like an extension of the gospels.' 

Plorn is bamboozled on two levels. Firstly, he considers himself an awkward and unworthy object of vicarious celebrity. 'I'm just a schoolboy, and not a smart one.' All the attention is cringeworthy and embarrassing. Secondly, he suspects that his father's feet of clay unqualify him for his untouchable reputation. Not least is the fact that the guvnor has sent away Plorn's mother, who bore his ten children, to begin his fling with Ellen Ternan, an actress far younger than himself. 

As with many youngest children, Plorn is a peacemaker; an empathetic seventeen-year-old who longs to believe the best of everybody. Hence, he's discouraged by his heart-to-hearts with Alfred, who insists on pointing out that when their father wanted to get rid of someone in his books, he either killed them off or sent them to Australia. Plorn tries his best to ignore Alfred's implication for the pair of them, but it becomes increasingly harder to turn a blind eye. For the lofty Charles Dickens, those who don't measure up to his great expectations (yep, pun intended) are sent to 'that pit at the end of the world where you toss useless folk in,' characters and sons alike. 

The wide, hot land is nothing like anyone imagined, and everyone is essentially winging it, while Britain is still referred to as Home with a capital H. For young Plorn Dickens, it becomes a crucible in which he faces up to some home truths about himself and his family that he might have overlooked if he'd stayed in England. He comes across bushrangers and bandits, natives and shearers, a wannabe author, a cougar who wants to 'have her Dickens' and a gracious housekeeper who professes to value Catherine Dickens' cookbook over all Charles' novels. In the process, Plorn becomes a different person than the boy who might have stayed home. 

Perhaps a better one.

My overall verdict is this. If you're an Aussie, this is well worth a read. Same if you've plowed through all or most of Dickens' major works. If you can tick both boxes (like me) this is unmissable, because we will get all the references for a start. Not to mention, we get to enjoy these two likeable Dickens sons, who felt themselves to be fall-shorts but who experienced and appreciated the land down under, which their father never once set foot in.  

🌟🌟🌟🌟½

'There are no Accidents' by Robert H Hopcke

Summary: A woman is set up on a blind date with the same man twice, years apart, on two different coasts. A singer's career changes direction when she walks into the wrong audition. A husband gives his wife an unexpected gift—after she repeatedly dreams about that very same item.

It was Carl Jung who coined the term "synchronicity" for those strange coincidences that we all experience—those moments when events seem to conspire to tell us something, to teach us, to turn our lives around. They are the strange plot developments that make us feel like characters in a grand, mysterious story.

MY THOUGHTS: 

The subtitle of this non-fiction book is 'Synchronicity and the Stories of our Lives.' I don't review every non-fiction book I ever read, but make an exception for those with material I'd really love to remember. I discovered this book at a secondhand shop, which itself might be a stroke of fortune. 

The word 'synchronicity' itself was coined by the Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, and the simplest definition is, 'a meaningful coincidence.' In this book, Hopcke first puts forward five hallmarks that are generally ticked off in any typical synchronistic event.

1) They are acausally connected, instead of having any sequence that can be attributed to cause and effect. 

2) They often occur with the accompaniment of deep emotional resonance. Often this occurs at the time of the event itself, but not always. (I've experienced a combination of on-the-spot and delayed revelations.)

3) The content is symbolic in its nature. (This opens interesting fields such as the collective unconscious, which is something like a psychic storehouse of the human race that contains collections of symbols or 'archetypes' which may take the form of people or situations. My interest in archetypes has been stirred as a result of reading this book.)

4) They often occur at points of important transitions in our lives. 

5) They tend to contain a numinous tone. In other words, when they occur, we feel that we are undeniably and irresistibly in the presence of the divine. 

Hopcke advises us early on to willingly listen to whatever life presents. And being a writer, I love his suggestion that given the dramatic quality of synchronistic events, it may be that true life sometimes mimics fiction, rather than vice versa. 

I also appreciate the idea, reflected in many of these anecdotes, that when things don't go to plan, the results may prove to be fortuitous rather than disastrous. Jung posited that they 'relativize the ego.' That is, they help tame our human desire to be controllers and masters of everything we face. Instead, synchronicities may lead us to see things from a larger perspective, with a far broader wisdom than anything we can comprehend. (Whew, I'd love to think so.)

Over the years I've come across thoughts by Christian authors on similar topics, but these writers have an agenda, so to speak. It's refreshing that Hopcke considers himself to hold an agnostic point of view, yet has still researched deeply enough to see that something deeper than what we can wrap our heads around is at play. 

He believes that nocturnal dreams may be assumed meaningful, but not in the sense that dream dictionaries with alphabetical listings may have us believe, for humans are not formed from cookie cutters and nothing is that pat. Similar dream scenarios may hold different significance for different people. 

Hopcke suggests that examining synchronistic events is similar to interpreting the meaning of a story, which every English and Creative Writing student is drilled to do. A vast variety of possible applications abound, and we must take into account our subjective experiences (how they made us feel, what they made us think, how they fit into our overall stories). 

I loved reading the many examples he's collected from several people. Some of the synchronicities seem feather-light, yet still tick the features from the list above. Reading these reinforce to me that I've experienced several in my own life. I won't inflate this review by including them here, but if I ever write about them in detail, I'll link it back to this post. 

I gotta love the thought that some invisible hand at work supplies our bulwark and meaning all through life, gently shifting scenes into place when we're clueless. That sort of evidence is abundant here. 

I'll finish off with this quote in full, from the father of synchronicity, Carl Jung.

'The problem of synchronicity has puzzled me for a long time, ever since the middle twenties when I was investigating the phenomena of the collective unconscious and kept coming across connections which I simply could not explain as chance groupings or "runs". What I found were coincidences which were connected so meaningfully that their chance occurrence would represent a degree of improbability that would have to be expressed by an astronomical figure.'  

Wow!

🌟🌟🌟🌟

'Three Act Tragedy' by Agatha Christie

Summary: Who wouldn't be pleased to attend a small dinner party being held by Sir Charles Cartwright, once the leading star of the London stage? At his "Crow's Nest" home in Loomouth, Cornwall.

Unfortunately, thirteen guests arrived at the actor's house, most unlucky. One of them was a vicar. It was to be a particularly unlucky evening for the mild-mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, who choked on his cocktail, went into convulsions and died. But when his martini glass was sent for chemical analysis, there was no trace of poison -- just as Hercule Poirot, also in attendance, had predicted. Even more troubling for the great detective, there was absolutely no motive!

MY THOUGHTS:

Sir Charles Cartwright, the famous retired actor, is having a party when one of his guests, Reverend Stephen Babbington, dies suddenly after sipping a cocktail. A short time later, celebrated nerve specialist, Sir Bartholomew Strange, dies drinking port at a gathering of his own. Alarmingly, some of the guests were present at both functions. And in both instances, the verdict turns out to be poisoning by means of a highly concentrated dose of pure nicotine. 

Sir Charles convinces two friends to help him figure it out. Mr Satterthwaite is an elderly patron of the arts. Miss Hermione Lytton Gore (nicknamed Egg!) is a star-struck girl who's fallen heavily for Sir Charles. Together, this unlikely trio takes on an extremely puzzling mystery.

Who would want either of the two lovely gentlemen dead; community pillars as they both were? How could they possibly be connected, if at all? Luckily a fourth truth-seeker pops up, who was present at the first murder, and whose interest has been piqued. It's our old friend Hercule Poirot. The professional detective understands that the amateur trio think they're onto it, so he graciously offers to stand back and not be a party pooper. Poirot will let Sir Charles have the glory of unraveling the crimes even if he has to spoon feed very broad clues. 

Okay, first for the nitpicking. To start with, there's something a bit tasteless about making any sort of a game out of murder, don't you think? Secondly, Sir Charles is way, way too old for Egg, even in an era when young girls idolized older men. And thirdly, getting used to her strange nickname takes a bit of effort at the outset. (I noticed a couple of other reviewers claim that was too big a stumbling block for them altogether, but I wouldn't go that far. A young woman has a right to call herself Egg if she wants to.)

Now the minor grumbles are out of the way, the solution is so audacious and ingenious. There was no way I could have possibly figured this one out, although several clues were laid before us. The red herrings are fantastic and the cast of suspects is varied, interesting, and seemingly motiveless across the board. There is a nice little lover's triangle, low-key as it is. And Poirot shines at his very best, and even offers a valid reason to Mr Satterthwaite for his continual boasting. He claims that making himself a deliberate target of people's gentle ridicule helps put them off guard regarding him. Hmmm. 

Other than all that, I wonder if Egg's defense of the Christian faith mirrors Christie's own.

'I really believe in Christianity, not like Mother does - with little books and early service and things - but intelligently and as a matter of history. The Church is all clotted up with the Pauline tradition, in fact the Church is a mess, but Christianity itself is alright... The Babbingtons really were Christians; they didn't poke and pry and condemn, and they were never unkind about people or things.' 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

'A Long, Fatal Love Chase' by Louisa May Alcott

Summary: 'I'd gladly sell my soul to Satan for a year of freedom,' cries Rosamond Vivian to her callous grandfather. A brooding stranger seduces her from the remote island onto his yacht. Trapped in a web of intrigue, cruelty, and deceit, she flees to Italy, France, Germany, from Paris garret to mental asylum, from convent to chateau - stalked by obsessed Phillip Tempest.

Two years before Little Women, serialized in a magazine under the alias A.M. Barnard in 1866, this was buried among the author's papers over a century.

MY THOUGHTS:

Whew, Louisa May Alcott does Wilkie Collins here. This is the Gothic thriller she wrote a couple of years before Little Women. My edition's title is abbreviated to, 'The Chase' but I prefer to use its full dramatic, somewhat spoilerish name. It was rescued from the woodwork and published posthumously as recently as 1995!  

Rosamond Vivian is stuck in a home near the sea with her gruff grandfather, and longs to stretch her wings. In the very first paragraph she declares that she'd gladly sell her soul to Satan for a year of freedom. Enter Phillip Tempest, a 'pupil' of her grandfather's. He sports a scarred forehead and looks exactly like a picture of Mephistopheles, the folklore demon. A tree that was planted the day of Rosamond's birth is struck down by lightning the night she meets him, but she overlooks this chilling omen and falls prey to his charm.

They get married and she cruises around the Mediterranean in his yacht, the Circe, having the time of her life. Then Rosamond discovers what a bad egg he is; a liar with a seamy past who's completely devoid of conscience. Rosamond decides to flee, but Phillip is always on her trail. Even though the world is a huge place in which to vanish, especially given rudimentary 19th century technology, Tempest and his creepy henchman, Baptiste, keep tracking her down. 

The scenes of the novel, scattered across Europe, include a convent and a lunatic asylum. When Rosamond gets to know the heroic and sexy young Father Ignatius, who made his vows a bit too prematurely, she realizes that her love for Tempest was based on naivety and restlessness. Yet her girlhood mistake is there to haunt her. She can't throw off the stalker from hell, who presumably never heard the saying, 'If you love somebody, set them free.' 

If you think it sounds melodramatic and theatrical, you'd be right.  

In terms of the Little Women universe, this reminds me of a plot Jo might have written for Meg to act the leading role in. And to judge from Jo's experiences writing sensationalized potboilers in the big city, Alcott herself became a bit shamefaced about her earlier writing. Although Louisa initially enjoyed writing it and resisted her publisher's request to come up with a wholesome 'book for girls', it appears from the earnestness of her subsequent work that she later changed her mind. I suspect this is the style of work Professor Bhaer surmised that Jo was ashamed to own up to. It is of material such as this that he states, 'I'd rather give my boys gunpowder to play with than this bad trash.' (Haha)

'She was living in bad society, imaginary though it was... she was feeding heart and fancy on dangerous and unsubstantial food.'

That's Alcott's nineteenth century way of commenting that stories like this may well be the junk food of literature. There's nothing overly shocking or gratuitous about The Chase, but nothing inspiring or stirring either. I understand how Alcott might been embarrassed about the quality of her earlier work in retrospect. Now I wonder if it's fair or ethical that this should have been brought to light for publication so long after her death, for I'm willing to bet she wouldn't have wanted it to be. 

The dastardly Phillip Tempest states, 'I like horrible books if they have power.' Fair enough, but I'm not convinced this fits that bill either. 

'Overcome by conflicting emotions of gratitude and grief, surprise and shame, Rosamond covered her face and threw herself at the feet of the actress.'

 In a world in which authors are encouraged to tread lightly, 'show not tell', and rarely name emotions, this is shockingly heavy-handed writing. 

Yet it's very interesting for Alcott fans to trace her personal development. Although the distinct genres make it a bit like comparing apples to oranges, the Little Women universe is far more to my taste.

🌟🌟 

'Playing Beatie Bow' by Ruth Park

I first studied this book as an assigned text for Year 9 English, which is longer ago than I care to admit. It was only four years after it was first published though, so that's a broad clue. Anyway, it was high time to revisit it, for my 2025 Aussie Reading Challenge.

Despite being on my school syllabus, the book lingers fondly in my memory, and no wonder. The story combines two excellent genres, time travel and family drama. What is not to love?

MY THOUGHTS:

It's a true blue Aussie, Sydney setting, and the winner and runner-up of multiple awards, the most noteworthy being the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year award in 1981 when it was still brand new. 

14-year-old Abigail Kirk is fuming mad. Returning home after a major dispute with her mother, she makes a wrong turn, not in space but in time. When Abigail decides to follow a strange little girl with shorn hair who's been hanging around her apartment building, she's led to a bewildering world where the basic street layout is familiar, but strangely old-fashioned and off-kilter. It's the colony of New South Wales back in 1873, where Abigail is still just a few blocks from home, yet over 100 years away.

Owing to an accident out the front, the little girl's family takes Abigail in. That spiky, smart child turns out to be Beatie Bow herself. Beatie's father, Samuel, is a confectioner by trade and former soldier who suffers sudden violent outbursts caused by PTSD. Wise old Granny, whose gift of second sight once burned strong, holds her son-in-law's family together. Gentle cousin Dovey is dutiful and beautiful in a porcelain doll sort of way. Then there are Beatie's two brothers. Sickly, morbid little Gibbie just escaped dying of fever, and can't stop dwelling on it; and Judah, the dependable, sunny-hearted sailor boy steals Abigail's heart. 

Ruth Park's sensory detail is immersive, making us feel like eye-witnesses. (For example, Abigail feels grossed out for being more grotty than normal in the Victorian era, although Granny and Dovey are slightly offended, because they take pains to be as clean as they possibly can.) 

Abigail overhears mysterious whispers that she's 'the Stranger' who is destined to appear from out of nowhere to save 'the Gift' for the family. And it turns out she accidently carries something on her person that facilitates her leap back in time. So this story is more than just time tourism, there is a vital mystery quest to solve and fulfil before she can hope to return to the twentieth century (or try to return!).

Although I loved it as much as before, I'm taking off half a star because of something I overlooked back then. Poor Abigail gets gaslighted for kicking up a stink regarding her parents, yet I find her reaction to their news is perfectly legitimate. She received a shattering blow to her trust and personhood four years earlier when her father ran off with another woman, and now her reuniting parents expect her to swallow their sudden line, 'We'll all fly off to Norway and be a happy family again.' I don't blame Abigail for questioning and resisting this cheesy new development when it is simply sprung on her. Yet she is treated like a nuisance and a spanner in the works by her mother and her conscience alike.  

Consequently, Abigail's experiences in the nineteenth century cause her to whitewash her dad's betrayal merely because he was struck by Cupid's arrow! She herself falls for Judah, who has a momentary leaning her way that lasts no longer than an afternoon, so now Abigail is willing to wipe the slate clean because her father's desertion of his family was all about lurve!! The theme, 'You have to experience love to know how powerful it is,' makes me facepalm in this instance, even though I'm a total romantic at heart. And then Abigail apologises to him!

'What a little dope I was, Daddy!'

Nope, he was the bigger dope. Forgiving him is fair enough, but bearing any reproach and shame on her own shoulders, for totally understandable and natural feelings, irks me. Abigail is gaslighting herself in effect, and Mr Kirk sure gets off lightly. 

But overall, I got a lovely book hangover, just as I did before, to the extent that I'm going to discuss some plot spoilers below the red line, in case you're interested. 

THE RED LINE - If you want no plot spoilers, read no further.

* I was mildly horrified that during the blazing house fire, everyone forgot Gibbie for so long! Sure, Dovey's bridal chest contained a vital garment, but would that really be the first thing to spring to the minds of Granny and Dovey, as well as Abigail? Actually, I'm more than mildly horrified!

* Nooooo, not Judah!!! I guess he had to perish in that shipwreck (sniff) to validify Abby's last-minute rescue of Gibbie, and preserve the Gift. But it seems a cruel twist for Granny and Dovey to die of typhoid a couple of years later. We also get a glimpse of Mr Bow expiring in a lunatic asylum. Sure, the nineteenth century was brutal, but I wish Ruth Park hadn't added those extra bits.

* The family prophecy seems somewhat problematic. Everyone is sure that out of the four remaining members of the younger generation (Judah, Dovey, Beatie, and Gibbie) it has to be one for death and one for barrenness. But hold on, Samuel and Amelia Bow lost a few other kids in infancy. Why couldn't the prophecy have referred to any one of them? 

* Whatever becomes of Beatie and Gibbie in the short term? By the time these two kids have lost everyone (Judah, Granny, Dovey, and their father), they are still only 15 and 14 years old at the most. So young to be totally bereft in a harsh era. Well, at least we know that Beatie eventually becomes a highly successful (and grumpy) classical scholar and headmistress, and Gibbie hooks up with some girl who he presumably marries and has at least one kid with. But oh, like Abigail, the interim stimulates my curiosity. 

* The classic time travel hiccup of a future traveler seriously changing the trajectory isn't emphasized in this story, yet Abigail still indirectly saves the life of Robert, the man we assume she eventually marries, and also her friend, Justine, and the two kids. If Abby hadn't plucked their grandfather (however many greats) from the jaws of death when he was 10, they would never have been born. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟½  

'A Traveller in Time' by Alison Uttley

Summary: This unusual novel is set in rural Derbyshire in the old manor house, Thackers, where the Babington family and their servant, Cicely Taberner, lived when Elizabeth I was Queen of England. The descendants of the Taberners have farmed the land through the centuries, and to the Taberners of the present day comes Penelope, their great-niece, a sensitive, imaginative girl, who is aware of other layers of time. With her awakened vision she sees people of the past move in their daily tasks among those of the present, and behind the contented life of the household of Cicely and Barnabas Taberner she finds the old tragedy of Anthony Babington and his plot to save Mary, Queen of Scots, being re-enacted.

MY THOUGHTS:  

This vintage YA time travel tale was first published in 1939.

The main character is Penelope Taberer Cameron, a lonely, delicate bookworm. She's sent for an extended stay to Thackers Farm, owned by elderly Aunt Tissie and Uncle Barnabas. Penelope's older siblings, Alison and Ian, go along too, but it happens that only Penelope possesses the rare family gift of second sight, which becomes her time travel catalyst. 

Time travel, in this story, strikes me as a double exposure sort of phenomenon, similar to old, wind-on film cameras. Every so often a scenario from the past is superimposed over Penelope's routine twentieth century life. She is frequently drawn back to the 1500s, when Thackers was owned by the Babington family, who were closet Catholics and staunch supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots during the time she was imprisoned by her cousin, Elizabeth I. 

Young Master Anthony Babington is a red-hot rebel who devotes his life to plans for Mary's release. His younger brother, Francis, becomes Penelope's good friend. Of course, Penelope has the awkward knowledge from her future vantage point that Mary gets executed, but blurting this out earns her no popularity.

Sadly, this book gets the thumbs down from me. It's essentially a history text book written in the guise of a time travel novel to fool the unwary. Different characters tend to launch into lengthy summaries about their life and times for Penelope's benefit (and therefore the reader's). This makes for wooden characterization. And they're all quite chill with the startling way she bobs up every so often in their private chambers, interrupting intimate moments, then disappearing again, supposedly to return to her family in London. 

What's more, modern historical fiction authors advise us that there's no need to divulge every snippet we research. Since this is a text book in disguise, Uttley ignores all this and crams in every trivial detail she can possibly manage. 

I used to come across this type of book during our homeschooling days, when they were highly recommended. Fellow homeschooling parents seemed to love these incognito history books masquerading as novels. ('The children are learning about the past without even knowing it, hehehe, shh.') I'm sure they knew it alright, like being hit with a brick. It makes for tedious reading, and I'd be willing to bet several kids throughout the decades decided they hated reading novels based on specimens like this. 

I don't deny there are a few nice touches. For example, when Anthony Babington loses his precious miniature of Queen Mary which he considers a good luck talisman, Penelope finds it as he asks her to, but in the twentieth century, where it's no good to him. For in this particular time travel universe, inanimate objects are not portable back and forth. 

I've noticed several other reviewers have called it, 'a beautiful novel' because of its depth of description, and some of the finer details about agrarian Elizabethan life that comes to light, along with the lovely illustrations by Faith Jaques. My reply would be, 'Sure, it might be beautiful, but it certainly doesn't tick my boxes of what makes a decent novel.' 

I love a good novel, and I like a well-written text book, but I have no time for these sneaky hybrids.

🌟🌟

25th Anniversary of 'Picking up the Pieces'

It's now 25 years since I've been a published author. This first hit the shelves around February 2000.

I was in my late twenties, with a great idea derived from a nocturnal dream. It started with a date rape, following which the perpetrator's life is devastated as thoroughly as his victim's. My challenge was to elicit strong reader sympathy for both of them, and I'm sure I succeeded, for in quarter of a century, I heard mostly positive feedback. It fitted the Christian fiction market I aimed it for, because of the strong redemption, grace, and forgiveness themes. 

My first ever sales opportunity made me quake in my shoes. I set up a stall of hot-of-the-press copies at a combined churches rally in the Adelaide Hills where we lived at the time, and sold only two copies. I hoped that abysmal response wouldn't prove to be a precedent of what to expect. Thankfully over time, quite a few thousand copies were sold, with a second printing and brand new publisher. And at around the halfway point, in 2014, the novel won a first prize in a category of the International Book Award. 

The story still holds a strong place in my heart, because of all the excitement I found hard to keep a lid on, my comparative youth, and hard work. I had a new-born baby who I would drive to sleep in her car-capsule while her brother was at kindergarten, and then I'd park at some attractive spot and work on my writing. Both kids are now grown up with the addition of a 20-year-old brother. Coincidentally, I was the same age my oldest son (that kindy kid) is now; 29 just turning 30 for the publication date. When I mentioned that the slide from 30 to 55 seems fairly rapid, he wasn't impressed. 

The purpose of this post is to celebrate that memorable stepping-stone. I've always loved the idea of time travel, including the notion of receiving insight from an older version of myself. If such a thing was possible, I've now reached  a perspective (just turned 55) where I could speak back to my younger self (just turned 30).

The first thing I would tell her is that I have grown much older, but not rich or famous, or even well-known, as I'd fantasised. But I'm still writing! And that's the main thing. (I know she would've been disappointed to have heard that first bit, so I would've had to break it to her gently.)

Here are a few more things I've picked up in that quarter century I might've told her, or anyone else who might want to eavesdrop.

1) It's true when writers claim, 'My characters are my friends.'

I've heard that this comes across as an exaggerated claim, but it's nonetheless true. The thing to understand is that our relationships with our characters converge a lot with the ones we have with our flesh-and-blood family and friends. Our 'real' people are precious to us for obvious reasons. They make great sounding boards as we do life together, and often deliver surprises as their lives unfold along with ours. With fictional characters, the same thing happens but from deep within our psyches. For me, it's never been a matter of sitting down and nutting out a plot. There is a lot of spontaneity involved in getting to know the characters. Scenes in which they communicate, react, and develop bubble up from my imagination. So given this sort of ongoing revelation, of course I consider them to be friends!

But it's the same with the characters of other authors, when they're well written. Any characters at all have the potential to become our friends, even when we are technically not theirs. 

2) Sadly, readers owe us nothing.

The quantity of feedback we receive isn't at all proportionate to the amount of time, passion, sacrifice, and vision we pour into each project. Each reader gets to enjoy the outcome of a writer's work for the couple of hours they take to read it, but they are under no obligation to pat our backs. Perhaps it's a good thing if it never occurs to the average reader that the souls of the writers hang over their shoulders like eager puppy-dogs, pawing their arms and demanding, 'Did you like it, did you like it, did you like it?' Who needs that sort of pressure?

I think this neediness is excusable on our part, because of the sheer volume of time and passion we've expended. But for our own peace of mind, we have to let it go. We must untwine the roots of ego that are tendrilled tightly around our brainchildren. We must regard the world of readers out there as a potentially friendly ocean we'll never fathom, rather than demanding echo chambers of our characters' worth and ours. 

To use another metaphor, feedback is something like priceless gold dust. It shouldn't be our fertilizer, because it's sparse by its very nature. The only way to keep our enthusiasm and inspiration flourishing is through the joy of the project itself. We can be high-maintenance hothouse plants that bloom only when sprinkled with rare praise and accolades, or we can be more like the agapanthus that grows along my front fence, which is self-renewing. I never get out there and so much as water it, yet each summer, new flowers predictably pop. After all this time, I've learned that it's a no-brainer to choose the second.

3) People's memories aren't as long as ours.

The accolades and awards that have come my way have been fewer and further between than my turn-of-the-century self would have hoped, and they've taught me something sobering but valuable. It's simply that people other than myself quickly forget about them.  

Why should they remember, after all? My dad once told me a story of how he kicked an astounding, match-winning goal when he was a young man who played football. He said that although he was the hero of the day, he'd be willing to bet that all those years later, not another soul remembered that event. That's liberating perspective.

 Everyone's grey matter is limited, so their own milestones must take priority. And with the passing of enough time, even we begin to forget our own milestones, if we don't take care to record and revisit them. 

I'll finish up by quoting in full this fantastic snippet of wisdom by an author named Joe Moran in his book, 'If You Should Fail: A Book of Solace. (I don't consider Picking up the Pieces or any of my other eight published books failures by any means, but that's the title of his book.)

He says:

'No truly worthwhile act has any surety of return. All creative work is a long-odds wager with our time and our lives. Books get pulped and shredded into road aggregate. Plays are performed to half full auditoria for a fortnight before the theatre goes dark. Films project into cinemas where paying customers fall asleep in the comfy chairs. A TV actor performs her big scene drowned out by the sound of thousands of hair dryers, vacuum cleaners and living room arguments. "All work is as a seed sown," wrote Thomas Carlyle. "Who shall compute what efforts have been produced, and are still, and into deep time producing?" 

'Many seeds are scattered, most fall on stones. Art is a dead letter with no name on the envelope, sent into the void. The fruits of creativity are asynchronous and asymmetrical - a suspended dialogue with the absent and yet to be born. All we can do is keep the faith that our lone acts of creation occur like the movements of flocking starlings or shoaling fish, in tandem with others, and that they will one day feed into the accumulated beauty and wisdom of the world. Every creative act joins in this eternal symphony of human life. Failure is the price we pay for our part in the orchestra.' 

Wow, in some perverse way, I find that encouraging. I'm still writing. Are you still doing your thing, whatever it is?