Interview meme
Jun. 10th, 2003 06:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radegundHere are my answers to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yiskah's questions:
1. Would you tell me a bit about the novel that you're writing? (I understand that this can be a sensitive subject, so I won't mind if you choose not to answer.)
I cringe whenever I have to describe the book, but this is not a good thing and I'm determined to get over it, so here goes: It's a pretty straightforward story about a Dubliner in her early twenties. She's temping, living alone in a flat owned by her uncle, drifting - unaware, at the beginning of the book, of how numb and isolated she's become. The plot revolves around her love-life and the choir she's in, which is preparing for a concert at a high-profile EU meeting in Belfast. There are touches of thriller, in that our heroine is being tailed by people whose affiliation and motives she doesn't know, and there's a love interest in the form of a new tenor (from England), who May Not Be All He Seems. The climax of the story is at the concert ... and I keep changing my mind about what happens after that!
The themes are mostly about knowledge of self and others, the masks we all wear, the vexed business of loving someone - and there's a family subplot thrown in for good measure.
I'm about two thirds of the way through drafting (almost 63,000 words so far). I'd lovelovelove to finish the first draft by the end of the summer.
2. Why 'radegund'? I am intrigued!
It's one of my real-life names. My parents were both doing PhDs in Cambridge when I was born (medieval French / medieval Italian), and they got all starry-eyed about the name, which they encountered because St Radegund is the patron saint of Jesus College. Happily, they balked at actually giving it to me as a first name (if you know my surname, you'll understand why this would have been an exceptionally bad idea), but I got it as a third name instead. I'm very attached to it.
More? Well, a Web search will give you loads, but meanwhile, here's what the "About Radegund" page on my website says:
"Radegund (or Radegunda, or Radégonde, or various other spellings) was a Thuringian princess born c. 520 CE. She was married off at an early age to the Frankish king Lothar, but she left him to found a convent at Poitiers. What with one thing and another, she was canonised after her death (ending up the patron saint of Jesus College, Cambridge, among other things). Accounts by her contemporaries suggest that she was a fiercely principled woman, iron-willed and quite mad.
"Some parts of that story may be arrant nonsense, by the way: most of what I know of Radegund is gleaned from Julia O'Faolain's novel Women in the Wall, a fictionalised version of her life."
3. Describe your ideal, yet feasible weekend (i.e. no unlimited funds or access to celebrities or anything like that).
I always want to do everything in the world at weekends. Sleep lots, spend time with friends, finish my novel, transform my house into an immaculately presented, meticulously clean and orderly haven, completely remodel the garden, cook and eat delicious food, go for long and invigorating walks in beautiful places, read many books, have new and exciting cultural experiences, end capitalism, usher in a new dawn of hope, sustainable living and peace on earth - that sort of thing.
Hmmm ... Maybe this is why I often feel drained and frustrated on Sunday evenings :-)
Sticking with what's feasible (meanie!), and choosing not to go the "surprise mini-break in Tuscany" route, let's start by making it a summer Bank Holiday weekend. My work finishes at 5:00 on Fridays, so there's plenty of time to go home, have dinner and go out withniallm to a party attended by a mixture of good friends and interesting strangers. (Oh, and the hosts are militant non-smokers.) Fascinating and hilarious conversations, maybe some dancing, moderate consumption of good wine. Home while the hours are still reasonably small.
Saturday: Lie-in. Unusually delicious breakfast in bed. Other bed-related activities (coy, I know - sorry!). Leisurely tea and newspapers with housemates, possibly enhanced by friends calling round, in which case a slap-up lunch. Unformatted afternoon - perhaps some gardening, writing, reading, a walk in the neighbourhood. In the evening, maybe meet friends for dinner and a funny and stylish yet thought-provoking film (I don't ask for much, do I?).
Sunday: I dithered over whether or not to make this a non-choir weekend. On balance, I think not, despite the early start. So, go to choir withglitzfrau, where we have enough tenors to do good stuff and the service (at least musically) goes brilliantly. As is traditional, have coffee and chocolate with the rest of the choir afterwards, then head off with Glitz for lunch with some other Sunday chorister friends. After lunch, mosey through shops with Glitz, who has the magical ability to guide those in her company towards excellent clothes. Pick up one or two such items at bargain prices. In the afternoon, accomplish some change that will improve the quality of life in our unfeasibly chaotic house. I mean something relatively permanent, like a new shelf, nicer curtains, fewer holes in the floor... In the evening, set out along the coast with niallm, take photographs, sit looking at the sea, find dinner somewhere quiet, plan all the ways in which we are going to take the world by storm.
Monday: My second lie-in of the weekend! Yay! Wake refreshed in the late morning. Bringniallm breakfast in bed (only fair). Get über-picnic ready and head Wicklow-wards, smiled upon by a cheery sun in a cloudless sky (although oddly, the pollen count seems unusually low for the time of year), picking up a cohort of friends along the way. Arrive at idyllic spot (by a stream, near trees); eat, bask, chat, paddle, walk. Come home feeling glowy and relaxed, and have light dinner before sitting down to an evening's concerted work on the novel. Go to bed early enough to read for a while and still get a good night's sleep.
Right. Now I know what I'm aiming for - thanks! :-)
4. Was there a particular moment or event that made you decide to be a writer? What was it?
It's in my blood. My grandmother was a novelist (mainly children's and historical - over 50 books). My aunt is a poet. My father has just sold his first novel. I remember writing a story for my sister before she was born - i.e. when I was just six. I'm pretty sure this was already a normal thing for me to do. (My sister writes as well. I don't think my brother has any designs in that direction, but you never know.)
All through primary school I was constantly scribbling away at something. In secondary school I won prizes in competitions for young writers - and when I met some of the other prizewinners and realised that there were people my age out there who felt the way I did about writing, it spurred me on.
In college I started off in the same vein but lost momentum. My English degree left me with a crippling reluctance to write any sentence that wasn't going to redefine world literature. This block, if you want to call it that, lasted for many years (and right through a Masters in creative writing, incidentally); I'm now in the process of shaking it off. It's been pretty hard, but I've never seriously considered giving up.
5. I take it from your info page that you're vegetarian - for how long? What made you decide to stop eating meat?
I stopped eating meat and fish a little over two years ago, having been phasing them out for a while before that. My father and sister are both veggies, so most of what we ate at home when I was growing up was flesh-free.
I love meat when it's of good quality and well handled. I miss it (although I know that part of this is missing the Platonic Morsel, and that the reality is a lot gristlier and bonier than I care to recall). I stopped eating it because I was seized by the overwhelming conviction that I should - just to try, just to see what it was like. Not a rational thing at all. More on the spiritual end of things, in fact.
I've stayed away because I abhor the modern meat industry. Live export, animals pumped with drugs, herbivores being fed bits of other herbivores, battery farming, the unsustainability of Western city-dwellers demanding daily meat when it takes so much more land and resources to raise livestock than to grow the equivalent in crops (or so I've heard - I've never actually researched this). Then I read Fast Food Nation and got riled up about the shameless exploitation of US meat processing plant workers and the anti-union stance of many of the big corporations.
It's not about the fluffy animals, in short. In the future, if I find a local organic supplier whose methods I respect, I may return to omnivorousness.
If you'd like me to dream up some questions for you, comment away!
yiskah's questions:1. Would you tell me a bit about the novel that you're writing? (I understand that this can be a sensitive subject, so I won't mind if you choose not to answer.)
I cringe whenever I have to describe the book, but this is not a good thing and I'm determined to get over it, so here goes: It's a pretty straightforward story about a Dubliner in her early twenties. She's temping, living alone in a flat owned by her uncle, drifting - unaware, at the beginning of the book, of how numb and isolated she's become. The plot revolves around her love-life and the choir she's in, which is preparing for a concert at a high-profile EU meeting in Belfast. There are touches of thriller, in that our heroine is being tailed by people whose affiliation and motives she doesn't know, and there's a love interest in the form of a new tenor (from England), who May Not Be All He Seems. The climax of the story is at the concert ... and I keep changing my mind about what happens after that!
The themes are mostly about knowledge of self and others, the masks we all wear, the vexed business of loving someone - and there's a family subplot thrown in for good measure.
I'm about two thirds of the way through drafting (almost 63,000 words so far). I'd lovelovelove to finish the first draft by the end of the summer.
2. Why 'radegund'? I am intrigued!
It's one of my real-life names. My parents were both doing PhDs in Cambridge when I was born (medieval French / medieval Italian), and they got all starry-eyed about the name, which they encountered because St Radegund is the patron saint of Jesus College. Happily, they balked at actually giving it to me as a first name (if you know my surname, you'll understand why this would have been an exceptionally bad idea), but I got it as a third name instead. I'm very attached to it.
More? Well, a Web search will give you loads, but meanwhile, here's what the "About Radegund" page on my website says:
"Radegund (or Radegunda, or Radégonde, or various other spellings) was a Thuringian princess born c. 520 CE. She was married off at an early age to the Frankish king Lothar, but she left him to found a convent at Poitiers. What with one thing and another, she was canonised after her death (ending up the patron saint of Jesus College, Cambridge, among other things). Accounts by her contemporaries suggest that she was a fiercely principled woman, iron-willed and quite mad.
"Some parts of that story may be arrant nonsense, by the way: most of what I know of Radegund is gleaned from Julia O'Faolain's novel Women in the Wall, a fictionalised version of her life."
3. Describe your ideal, yet feasible weekend (i.e. no unlimited funds or access to celebrities or anything like that).
I always want to do everything in the world at weekends. Sleep lots, spend time with friends, finish my novel, transform my house into an immaculately presented, meticulously clean and orderly haven, completely remodel the garden, cook and eat delicious food, go for long and invigorating walks in beautiful places, read many books, have new and exciting cultural experiences, end capitalism, usher in a new dawn of hope, sustainable living and peace on earth - that sort of thing.
Hmmm ... Maybe this is why I often feel drained and frustrated on Sunday evenings :-)
Sticking with what's feasible (meanie!), and choosing not to go the "surprise mini-break in Tuscany" route, let's start by making it a summer Bank Holiday weekend. My work finishes at 5:00 on Fridays, so there's plenty of time to go home, have dinner and go out with
niallm to a party attended by a mixture of good friends and interesting strangers. (Oh, and the hosts are militant non-smokers.) Fascinating and hilarious conversations, maybe some dancing, moderate consumption of good wine. Home while the hours are still reasonably small.Saturday: Lie-in. Unusually delicious breakfast in bed. Other bed-related activities (coy, I know - sorry!). Leisurely tea and newspapers with housemates, possibly enhanced by friends calling round, in which case a slap-up lunch. Unformatted afternoon - perhaps some gardening, writing, reading, a walk in the neighbourhood. In the evening, maybe meet friends for dinner and a funny and stylish yet thought-provoking film (I don't ask for much, do I?).
Sunday: I dithered over whether or not to make this a non-choir weekend. On balance, I think not, despite the early start. So, go to choir with
glitzfrau, where we have enough tenors to do good stuff and the service (at least musically) goes brilliantly. As is traditional, have coffee and chocolate with the rest of the choir afterwards, then head off with Glitz for lunch with some other Sunday chorister friends. After lunch, mosey through shops with Glitz, who has the magical ability to guide those in her company towards excellent clothes. Pick up one or two such items at bargain prices. In the afternoon, accomplish some change that will improve the quality of life in our unfeasibly chaotic house. I mean something relatively permanent, like a new shelf, nicer curtains, fewer holes in the floor... In the evening, set out along the coast with niallm, take photographs, sit looking at the sea, find dinner somewhere quiet, plan all the ways in which we are going to take the world by storm.Monday: My second lie-in of the weekend! Yay! Wake refreshed in the late morning. Bring
niallm breakfast in bed (only fair). Get über-picnic ready and head Wicklow-wards, smiled upon by a cheery sun in a cloudless sky (although oddly, the pollen count seems unusually low for the time of year), picking up a cohort of friends along the way. Arrive at idyllic spot (by a stream, near trees); eat, bask, chat, paddle, walk. Come home feeling glowy and relaxed, and have light dinner before sitting down to an evening's concerted work on the novel. Go to bed early enough to read for a while and still get a good night's sleep.Right. Now I know what I'm aiming for - thanks! :-)
4. Was there a particular moment or event that made you decide to be a writer? What was it?
It's in my blood. My grandmother was a novelist (mainly children's and historical - over 50 books). My aunt is a poet. My father has just sold his first novel. I remember writing a story for my sister before she was born - i.e. when I was just six. I'm pretty sure this was already a normal thing for me to do. (My sister writes as well. I don't think my brother has any designs in that direction, but you never know.)
All through primary school I was constantly scribbling away at something. In secondary school I won prizes in competitions for young writers - and when I met some of the other prizewinners and realised that there were people my age out there who felt the way I did about writing, it spurred me on.
In college I started off in the same vein but lost momentum. My English degree left me with a crippling reluctance to write any sentence that wasn't going to redefine world literature. This block, if you want to call it that, lasted for many years (and right through a Masters in creative writing, incidentally); I'm now in the process of shaking it off. It's been pretty hard, but I've never seriously considered giving up.
5. I take it from your info page that you're vegetarian - for how long? What made you decide to stop eating meat?
I stopped eating meat and fish a little over two years ago, having been phasing them out for a while before that. My father and sister are both veggies, so most of what we ate at home when I was growing up was flesh-free.
I love meat when it's of good quality and well handled. I miss it (although I know that part of this is missing the Platonic Morsel, and that the reality is a lot gristlier and bonier than I care to recall). I stopped eating it because I was seized by the overwhelming conviction that I should - just to try, just to see what it was like. Not a rational thing at all. More on the spiritual end of things, in fact.
I've stayed away because I abhor the modern meat industry. Live export, animals pumped with drugs, herbivores being fed bits of other herbivores, battery farming, the unsustainability of Western city-dwellers demanding daily meat when it takes so much more land and resources to raise livestock than to grow the equivalent in crops (or so I've heard - I've never actually researched this). Then I read Fast Food Nation and got riled up about the shameless exploitation of US meat processing plant workers and the anti-union stance of many of the big corporations.
It's not about the fluffy animals, in short. In the future, if I find a local organic supplier whose methods I respect, I may return to omnivorousness.
If you'd like me to dream up some questions for you, comment away!