Flowers to Remember Christmas...by Sheila Claydon

The cover of the latest edition, published by Books We Love 

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A second edition ebook published by another publisher no longer operating

The original cover when the book was one of 2 full length stories published together

In recent blogs I have written about how the covers of some of my books have changed over the years as new editions have been published. How, too, I have transitioned from using the pseudonym Anne Beverley to my own name of Sheila Claydon, and how this also affected the publication. (see above) 

Today I am blogging about the third of these vintage books, Bouquet of Thorns, and I have chosen this one  because of the flowers and because it is almost Christmas. My mother was a very talented florist and because florists are always very busy in the festive season, I sometimes got to help her in those long ago  Christmases. Although I was given the unskilled jobs such as sweeping floor and filling vases with water, occasionally far more exciting things happened, and these are the seasonal memories I cherish. 

I was born and raised in Southampton, England, which is a coastal city with a port used by liners from across the world.  Nowadays it is the busiest cruise terminal and the second largest container port in the UK. In those far distant days, however, when cruises were only for the very wealthy, people would spend days and weeks aboard ship travelling to places such as South Africa and America, instead of flying as most do today. And that was how, from quite a young age, I was able to accompany my mum when she went on board what were then some of the most modern liners in the world, to decorate the state rooms, the various lounge and dining areas, the ball rooms and other communal places, and deliver personal bouquets to individual cabins. Sometimes I even got to do the personal deliveries myself...not exactly knocking on the cabin door and handing over the flowers, but taking them to the correct deck and searching out the bedroom steward who would then take charge of them.

Walking up the gangway carrying a bouquet of flowers or a box of plants made me feel very important but even better was going down to the galley to see the chefs at work, and then being served a meal that was far more exotic than anything I got at home because it was in the days before we all began to adopt the dishes of other countries and cultures. I would often be given chocolate, cakes and fruit to take home too. I  tasted my first Hershey bar courtesy of a steward on an American liner, long before they were sold in the UK. Pineapple too, and mango. And many other things that are available most places now but which weren't then.

So Bouquet of Thorns not only reminds me of those far off Christmases, it also reminds me of my mum, and every word written about the flowers and the floral displays in the book comes from that. Helping her taught me a lot, and it's thanks to her that I know how to care for cut flowers, how to revitalise them when they start to droop, and how best to display them. I know the best way to pot up plants too, and care for those, and, like my mum, that has tipped over into loving and caring for garden plants as well. So although those visits to the vast and glossy liners in the port of Southampton are long past, I still remember how it felt to be accepted by the crew and, probably because I was young, given so many treats. To this day I still remember most of the things my mum taught me about flowers, the same as I remember the joy of those Christmases past.

If you like flowers too, then you can find a snippet from Bouquet of Thorns on my Website.

Happy Christmas and I hope you are able to make some happy memories that stay with you, even in these difficult times.

Light the Way

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At the end of this strange, dark year, I wish you light. 

I thank everyone who has gifted me with light in 2020…

To the nurse who took the time to tell me how reading my Mercies of the Fallen had eased her out of her work in the middle of a pandemic to enjoy a love story held together by the notes of its hero’s penny whistle…

To my family for sending images of dogs frolicking on the Oregon shore and a baby reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? in sun-kissed California. 

To my community, for flooding an ancestor's mailbox with cards to celebrate her 100th birthday, and for for lighting up our town square in defiance of death itself.

Light a candle. Be the light. We'll get through this, together.

Clearing Clutter

 

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One of my projects for this winter of COVID-19 is to clear clutter from my house. I'm starting with boxes of writing stuff I've accumulated during the past 30 years. So far, I've filled several recycling bins with papers, although I'm still holding onto more than I should.  

Easy to dump are old query letters to publishers and their form rejection letters. I've never understood writers who talk of papering their den walls with rejection letters for inspiration. My instinct is to shove the depressing messages out of sight, although rejection has prompted me to write better, and still does. I am keeping the occasional rejections that complimented my writing and place them in a binder with other encouragements I received on my journey to publication.  

I'm also throwing out critiques of chapters from novels that I subsequently revised and published, since there's no point in rereading the comments now. In the pre-digital days of writing classes, we had to print copies of our submissions for each of our classmates to scrawl comments on. That's a lot of paper for my recycling bin. Now and then a page of positive remarks by an instructor or writer-in-residence jumps out at me. I add these to my encouragement binder. It turns out this de-cluttering project is partly about jettisoning negative and irrelevant memories, while preserving ones that boost my spirit. 

Stuff I can't bring myself to toss out includes notes and newspaper clippings that might have value for future writing projects. I file these in boxes and folders with labels so I can find them easily when I want. If I ever move to a smaller place, I'll instantly get rid of most of this, including my folder for the mythology workshop I didn't understand at the time, and still find baffling from my perusal of the notes. For now, these folders and boxes don't take up much space on my shelf, where they'll stay until I'm ready to dive into them or downsize.   

 The best finds are bits of clutter that might have an immediate use. I created folders for my current novel-in-progress, my next three story ideas, editing, and book promotion and tuck relevant notes and clippings into the folders. For instance, my germ of an idea for my next mystery novel includes a ghost in ways I haven't figured out yet. This prompted me to hold onto a comment by a creative writing instructor about Shakespeare's Hamlet. 'The ghost is a catalyst, and is the ghost telling the truth?' When I sit down to write the novel, this question about Hamlet's ghost might or might not trigger thoughts about the ghost in my story. If it doesn't, I'll send the instructor's observation to the recycling bin or to another folder, where it might apply.  

Also useful in the near future is advice for presenting my work in public. I'm collecting my scattered notes and handouts on this topic into one labelled box, along with printouts of past readings I've done. One tidbit of advice that I've taken to heart is to not read from the book itself. A printout of the scene enables me to enlarge the font for easier reading, revise the scene for audience interest and engage better with listeners than I can with my nose in the book. The next time I'm called on to do a literary reading I'll leaf through the box for printouts of a scene that suits the occasion and refresh myself on the advice, all of it conveniently located in one place. 

Nowadays, advice for public presentation tends to focus on Zoom and similar platforms. A couple of months ago, I attended an excellent webinar on this subject and made handwritten notes. The 'Readings' box will be the logical place for the notes, if I can find them in my recent piles of writing clutter. 

 Happy Holidays, however you celebrate this year!