Keep safe...by Sheila Claydon

Click this link for my books and author page

COVID 19, or Coronavirus as it is more commonly known, is taking over the world. Countries are putting the most drastic measures in place to contain it and, in the process, damaging the global economy, causing what may be fatal disruptions to some small businesses, and upsetting the normal routines of their citizens. Despite what is still a relatively small number of people affected when measured against the world population, it has everyone running scared.  Especially those who have compromised immune systems because of other underlying illnesses, and the elderly.

Although I have visited many other countries around the world and know some of them well, in this instance I can only speak for the attitudes of the people in the UK, where measures different from those of the rest of Europe and beyond are beginning to unfold.  The decisions are based on the developing science of Coronavirus as well as from discussions with experts across the world. Only time will tell if they are the right decisions. In the meantime there is a new problem. The influence of social media. Despite clear and repeated guidance from medical experts, and despite there being 24 hour advice and access to free medical care, many people and organisations are beginning to panic and, instead, to copy the restrictions that are happening elsewhere. Again only time will tell if these personal decisions will interfere with the science the government is trying to follow. In the meantime most of us are doing the best to get on with our lives, especially the older members of the population even though they are in the high risk category.

Where I am life is continuing more or less as normal. The only difference is that everyone is making sure their larders and refrigerators are well stocked just in case they have to self-isolate, and this is a community top heavy with older people. Jokes about the situation circulate daily, neighbours wave cheerily and there is not a mask to be seen. Attitudes have been likened to the blitz spirit of 'we are all in this together' in WW2. Of course it will only take a couple of local cases for this to change but in the meantime the writer in me is fascinated by the phlegmatic attitude of so many people. Maybe growing up immediately after the war when food was rationed and choice was limited has had a long term effect, or maybe it's because older people have so much life experience that they are less easily frightened. Or maybe it's just that because so many of them don't follow social media that they remain exempt from the fears percolating the rest of the world.

Whatever it is, it is to be admired, and it is that spirit that is imbued in the very elderly grandmother as well as in some of the other older characters in my book Remembering Rose. Whatever happens in the world, writers can't help storing up the experience for future use. In the meantime, my cupboards are full, my family is safe, the sun is shining and the dog is asking for a walk.

Until this is over, stay safe and take care. Tomorrow is another day.

What's in a Book Title?

My BWL books

my email

Most authors think hard and long about the titles of their novels. They need to be memorable, of course.  How to find the perfect title?

We can go to the classics... Some of what Mark Twain wrote were considered "boys' stories" in their time. And so his titles were meant to draw the interest of this audience...The Adventures of Huckeberry Finn, Tom Sawyer.  Very what you see is what you get. When I was writing my adventure novels for young people, a seasoned author advised me to follow Mark Twain's example and so: The Ghosts of Stony Clove got a title. (She also told me not to be afraid to put ghosts in the title!)

Mark Twain, who knew a cracking good story

How about those one word titles... they are easy to remember!...Jaws, Jazz, Beloved, Atonement, Emma, It, Middlemarch, Mudbound, Room and Outlander come to mind. I've never achieved the magnificent feat of a one word title!  The closest I've gotten is two words: Seven Aprils, my novel of the Civil War that is the first of my American Civil War Brides series.

My two-word title novel

Some titles are beautifully poetic and evocative...To Kill A Mockingbird, Lord of the Ring, Catcher in the Rye, Tender is the Night, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Don't those titles make you want to dive into the story? 

My upcoming novel, Mercies of the Fallen came from a beautiful song written and performed by my one-time neighbor Dar Williams. Mercy of the Fallen. It begins:

Oh my fair North Star, 
I have held to you dearly,
I had asked you to steer me...

Those lyrics spoke to me as I was writing this story of damaged people growing in grace and beauty through the travails of war. Here's more of what proved deeply meaningful to me 

in my own storytelling:

There's the wind and the rain, and the mercy of the fallen...
There's the weak and the strong and the many stars that guide us, 

we have some of them inside us

Speaking of song lyrics, I used popular songs of the 1940s to title my romantic suspense Code Talker Chronicles. The first is I'll Be Seeing You because my team of Luke Kayenta and Kitty Charante have not yet met, but Luke's longing for Kitty is already in place.  In Watch Over Me, they have their first adventure together. This sets the stage for what they'll do from now on: watch over each other.  Book 3?  How does All of Me (one of my mom's favorites) sound?

Book 1

Book 2

How a Pandemic Inspired my Writing

                                  Please click this link for purchase and author information 

In 2009 my husband Will and I spent a month in Italy. I hadn't been to Europe in fourteen years 

and was eager to return to its history and culture, but a little anxious about the adventure. Shortly before we were due to leave, the swine flu hit Mexico and the United States. Unlike most flus, including the current Coronavirus (COVID-19), the swine flu (H1N1) didn't largely kill the elderly and sick. A strain of the 1918 Spanish influenza virus, many healthy, younger people succumbed to H1N1, which quickly spread to Europe. People talked of a worldwide pandemic. And here we were setting out on a plane into this risky situation. I thought of cancelling the trip. But, out of my anxiety came an idea for a short story. A man, grieving the death of his wife, travels through Italy, worried about catching the swine flu. I'd call the story "Pandemic."

2009 H1N1 (Swine flu) Pandemic - laboratory confirmed cases and deaths

In the Rome airport, I noticed several people wearing surgical masks. This struck me as unusual, but now would be common for travel at any time. When I later wrote the story, I included this detail along with others I wrote in a journal I carried through Rome, Venice, Tuscany and Sorrento. Will and I rented weekly apartments in these locations, as did Tony, my story protagonist. I took photos and made notes about our residences, which were part of the story landscape along with the tourist attractions that Tony, Will and I visited.. "Pandemic's" first turning point occurs when Tony is impressed by Bernini's sculptures in the Galleria Borghese Museum in Rome. Tony thinks, as I did, that he is witnessing genius. How did Bernini make a pinch of skin on a marble thigh look soft and real?

Aside from occasional sightings of surgical masks, I forgot about the swine flu while absorbing Italy's museums, eating pizza and drinking wine in cafes, exploring ancient sites and warrens of medieval streets. After our trip, The World Health Organization declared H1N1/09 a Pandemic. It was tragic for the people who died. They were far fewer in number than those who die annually from a seasonal flu, and this is expected to be the case with COVID-19.

At home, I returned to my novel-in-progress, but Tony's story kept churning through my mind. Eventually, I sat down and wrote "Pandemic," my first work of fiction set in another country. Aided by my photos and journal notes, I found setting descriptions easier to write than ones in my stories set in Canada. Tony's encounter with two sisters while climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa felt fresher than scenes of people meeting in ordinary, North American restaurants. I've sometimes thought of  "Pandemic" as part story, part travelogue.

In "Pandemic," Tony and the sisters take comical photos of each other 'holding up' the Leaning Tower of Pisa

"Pandemic" isn't published yet. At almost 12,000 words, it's too long for most short story markets and too short for a novella, much less a novel. I've broken "Pandemic" down into four standalone stories, set in the different Italian locations. The Venice standalone is titled "Gondolier Groupies;"  Tuscany is "La Brezza." Still no luck with publication. Now, COVID-19 has prompted me to dust off  "Pandemic" and revise the whole story again.

I find it interesting to work on a story that aligns with the zeitgeist. Today's constant news and worry about a pandemic infuses Tony's actions and the story descriptions. I'd have thought that immersing myself in the fictional world of a crisis similar to COVID-19 might make me anxious about our present situation. Instead, it's a release from concerns of impending disaster, and this is one reason writers write.

In Venice, Tony embarks on an ill-fated adventure with two young women and a pair of gondoliers