It's a dog's life...by Sheila Claydon

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In my When Paths Meet series two of my characters are dogs. In book 1 it is Blue, an old Labrador and in books 2 and 3 it is Cora who grows from a boisterous puppy to a well trained dog. They are both integral to the stories although the books are not about animals, and now my love of dogs has come home to roost!

I never thought I would end up as a dog whisperer, but that's what I am. After a long career in health and a busy retirement where I have juggled writing 11 books with helping care for my grandchildren, it's now all about dogs!

None of this is intentional. We have always had dogs and now our furry family member is Elfie, a 4 year old poodle/cavalier cross. She is super bright and friendly and is the reason we keep walking and making like-minded friends, and that is how things have escalated.  Looking after our daughter's very deaf cavalier, Peppa, was a given when she was away, but then we made an agreement with a dog-walking friend that we would care for her wire-haired fox terrier, Ginny, whenever she needed us to. This meant that we frequently had 3 dogs at the same time. Then a fourth dog, a black Labrador  joined us. This was Archie. He was old and creaky but because one of his owners was very ill we had him on and off for weeks at a time. So now we were up to 4 dogs on a very regular basis. It's a good job we live right opposite open country that leads straight down to miles of sandy beach where dogs can run off lead because the thought of managing 4 dogs on leads is not my idea of fun,. Fortunately all our canine guests are very obedient if only because they are all very keen on biscuit rewards!

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For a while all was well but then, while we were still looking after him, Archie became very ill and after an operation and a spell in the veterinary hospital, he died. It was devastating to us and to his owner who, having only just lost her husband, was visiting her daughter in Australia, so all the decisions about his care had to be made by phone and text. Dogs are so brave. I spent 2 nights sleeping on the couch beside him when he could no longer walk and he still wagged his tail when I spoke to him, or licked my hand.

With any pet you have to be prepared to love them and lose them, however,  and now, although we miss Archie,  a new recruit has joined our ever growing canine collection. This is Paisley, another cavalier/poodle cross, 13 weeks old and being trained as a school dog to work with children with Autism. She belongs to our daughter who is a specialist in autism practice but as we will often be caring for her we are having the training too. It will take a year to cover everything but, as you can see from the picture, the training is working. At 13 weeks old Paisley already knows to sit for a treat and wait her turn. And although he died so soon after she joined the family, Archie did meet Paisley, so the circle is complete.

Also, as a complete coincidence, or was in foresight, in one of the books a dog is important to an autistic child. Life can be stranger than fiction but just occasionally fiction gets there first!

Sometimes it's bluebells...by Sheila Claydon

I lead a very busy life, the same as most of you no doubt. Given the choice I would opt for a 36 hour day. That way I would stand a better chance of fitting everything in. Of course I'm perfectly well aware that busy, busy, busy is not the best way to live; a philosophy the poet William Henry Davies (1871-1940) explained far better than I can in his famous poem Leisure:

What is this life if, full of care, 

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait 'til her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

William Davies took this to extreme by living the life of a hobo and tramp both in the US and the UK for a significant part of his life, and he never did settle into paid employment. Eventually, however, through sheer doggedness and determination, he began to earn a living through his writing, and eventually became one of the most popular poets of his time. In later life he became friends with many of the literary figures of the day and also socialised with famous artists and members of the higher echelons of society. The sculptor Jacob Epstein crafted a model of Davies' head and Augustus John painted his portrait. 

Since his death many of his works have been given a musical setting and songs have been written using the words from his poems. Not bad for a hobo who not only lost a leg as a result of trying to jump a freight train at Renfrew, Ontario, but who left school at age 14 under a cloud for being a member of a small gang who stole handbags. 

There is so much more to his life, and so many poems and stories all of which can be found on the Internet, but the best is him reading his own poem, Leisure.  I have always had an aversion to listening to poets read their own works because so many of them adopt a style that is either drearily monotonous or delivered with too much emphasis on rhythm, both of which distract this particular listener from the actual words. Actors, on the other hand, will often paint a picture with their voices and, by doing so, manage to convey the true meaning of the poem. This is a generalisation of course and I would have to listen to a great many more poets before I could prove my point. William Henry Davies is, however, the exception that proves the rule. Just watch the virtual film that uses his real voice as he recites his poem Leisure at https://youtu.be/a49DdXTrEjQ and it is immediately clear that he means every word. 

So much for William Henry Davies, but what about the rest of us? Very few people can lead his sort of life, or would even want to, but what we can take from it is the need to stand and stare from time to time. I have help with this in the form of a small dog who tells me, without fail, every day, that she needs a walk, and because I am lucky enough to be surrounded by fields and woodland, we both find the time to stand and stare, even when it's raining or blowing a gale. I don't always want to go but I'm always so pleased I did by the time I return home again. Even the bare skeletons of trees in winter have a beauty that is worth watching, but it's not always bare trees. Sometimes it's bluebells.

Who could fail to feel uplifted on a walk like this, one that helped to inspire my book Mending Jodie's Heart. Set in my local countryside it eventually became the When Paths Meet trilogy, a family saga with three different romances at its heart. Without taking the time to stand and stare I might never have thought of it.

Details of all my books can be found at http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/claydon-sheila-romance/ and at 

Sheila Claydon on facebook

I cried when I reached the end... but in a good way....by Sheila Claydon

Katy was used to losing things. First she’d lost her childhood home, then her career and reputation, and finally, and most dreadfully, her identity, so she knew she should be used to it. She wasn’t though and she couldn’t bear the thought of having to leave her job and start over, not now she was beginning to make a new life for herself. On the other hand she wasn’t prepared to play second fiddle to her boss’s girlfriend. Thank goodness she’d found out what he was really like before it was too late…or had she?

We have all read books which made us cry. Stories that have so gripped our emotions that we have totally identified with the characters even though we know they are fictional. It happened to me earlier this week...except it wasn't quite like that. You see I wrote the book!

It was Saving Katy Gray. I developed the storyline and created the characters. I knew the outcome too, obviously, so why on earth did I cry? There are two possible explanations. The first is that I need to get a grip! The second is that I might...just might... be a halfway good writer. I hope it's the second one but the only way a writer can ever really know is if a reader posts a good review, or makes contact by email or letter, and when that happens it's thrilling.

Saving Katy Gray is the final book of my When Paths Meet trilogy and it was published in 2014. As is the way with most writers after the excitement of publication day, I moved on and started writing another one. Now, several years later, Books We Love is adding a print format to all those eBooks, something that thrills me greatly even though it entails a considerable amount of work. As well as having to reformat the books, there is an opportunity to re-edit before they go into a second edition, so that's what I was doing. Re-reading and editing. What I wasn't expecting was that one of my own books would make me cry..

It also made me realise how much emotion a writer invests in each book and, in my case, even more when it is a series. By the time I finished writing the third book the characters were like family. Even now I think of the local but anonymised house and garden that I 'borrowed' for Book One, as 'Marcus' and Jodie's house' whenever I walk past it. The same goes for the local riding stables. Although I moved their location in my book, they still  belong to 'Jodie' in my mind.

Re-reading a book published several years ago was interesting too. I was surprised by how much I wanted to tweak things...not the story, but some of the dialogue. Some of the prose as well. While it was fine (and edited) the first time around, reading it again in a couple of sittings made me want to tighten it up. It was a good exercise and well worth it because now I'll be able to have print copies of each of my books too.

I know fellow writers will understand  about the crying and the relationship with my characters. I'm less sure about the reading public, but if they like the books then that's enough. I just hope they don't think I need to get a grip!

My books can be found at Books We Love and on Amazon

I also have a website and can be found on facebook  and twitter

Who said never work with children or animals? ... by Sheila Claydon

The legend is that it was the comedian W.C. Fields but this is frequently disputed. It is generally accepted, however, that working with either children or animals on stage always carries risk. A child may steal the whole show or, instead, behave in an entirely unpredictable way, either of which is a challenge for the other actors. This is only too well illustrated by this TV clip from 1969. Admittedly the presenters were probably asking for it as they don't seem very prepared for what might go wrong on a live recording, but what did go wrong remains a favorite memory for everyone who saw it. Over forty years later it's still shown on British TV from time to time, and it still makes everyone laugh.



Using animals and children in books though it's an entirely different matter. They can be the focus of the story or act as a link between the main protagonists. They can inject humor, fear or pathos into the narrative or just provide a colourful background. They can also be used to give individual characters status. After all if a writer wants her hero to be a father, then he must have a child. The trick for the author is to decide how much of the story should be given over to the children.

I've just finished reading those great imaginary essays on history, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel and she uses children brilliantly. There are many of them woven into the  epic story of the court of Henry VIII and yet none of them have a star part. What they do instead is, by their behaviour, show the reader who the adults are. Thomas Cromwell, for instance, reported by history to be many things from great statesman to cold-blooded opportunist, is, in Mantel's books, a loving father and uncle. His house is full of children and when his own daughters die of the sweating sickness that was so prevalent in London at the time, he doesn't forget his responsibilities to his dead sister's children, but makes a home for them even though they can never replace his own. Yet despite this, none of the children are more than shadowy background figures. What they do, however, is remind the reader that whatever else he was, Cromwell was a man full of human warmth who was kind to those he loved. He also loved dogs and in the books is never without one and from time to time he has the sort of conversation with his dog that all pet owners will understand.

In the same books, Mary Tudor, only daughter of Henry and his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, is portrayed through the eyes of the many adults who surround her. She rarely appears herself even though she is integral to the story. Instead, the reader learns much about her and about how cruelly she  is manipulated while she is still a child through the words and sniggers of the courtiers. As a consequence of this clever narrative much is learned about Mary's royal parents, Anne Boleyn her stepmother, and also about Cromwell himself. Whether any of it is true is a matter for conjecture, but as a story telling technique it is masterful, as is the reference to Anne Boleyn's small dog whose untimely death supposedly caused her more grief than the loss of her own infant baby.

Ruminating on this after I read the last page, I thought about my own books. Slight they may be compared with the epic histories of Mantel, but I realised that in some of them I have used the same technique. In Mending Jodie's Heart I've gone even further. Without the children, the dog, the birds and the horses, there would be no story. The children's likes and dislikes, their hopes and ambitions are the things that fuel it. Without the children and the animals the reader would never have learned about the hero and the heroine's flaws and their strength. The children and the animals were also the reason I had to turn what was meant to be one book into a trilogy. I had to know what happened to them. Whether I managed to use them skilfully enough to show the true characters of the adults in their lives is for the reader to decide.

My books are available at http://bookswelove.net/authors/claydon-sheila/ and also at Amazon. I'm also at:

sheilaclaydon.com

facebook.com/SheilaClaydon.author

twitter.com/SheilaClaydon