BOOK NOOK; A Girl of White Winter by Barb Hendee

A Girl of White Winter is a book of choices and decisions.  Kara is a reclusive ingenue, brought up by her guardian on a remote estate, which she has never left.  She is an innocent, yet she is also a femme-fatale and every man who claps eyes on her wants her for his own. This leads to predatory behaviour from men and jealous activity from women. Kara is bewildered by it and undeserving of all such treatment. 

When the lord of the estate betrays her trust and sells her off to a neighbouring lord in exchange for a pocket of land, she thinks that her situation couldn't get much worse.  

Carried off by her new young lord, they are attacked by a band of gypsy thieves and Kara is once again abducted and taken to the gypsy camp.  There she is thrust into a barn, where a magic mirror materializes, offering to give her an insight into each of the three choices that lay before her...try to escape back home, stay at the camp, or leave with one of the travelling gypsies.

As Kara gazes into each wing of the triple mirror in turn, she is shown the life she will live with that suitor, helping her to make her ultimate decision.  Well, couldn't we all use a mirror like that?  This book explores the dramatic outcomes that come from a single choice and how one's life-path twists and turns, depending on the decisions we make along the way.  It also builds on the idea that some people are always going to turn up in one's life and that such strong romantic connections are made by Fate and cannot really be avoided or argued with. 

Which life will Kara choose; the passionate connection with a soul mate, the affluent life of a mistress, or the steady man she respects?  Each life offers something different - love, security or safety - but she can only have one.  

Personally, I would have given her a fourth choice, in which she tells all the men to get stuffed and goes her own way - but that's just me.  The wrong choice made for the right reasons is still the wrong choice, and it can lead to a lifetime of regret and heartache.

This book does make you reflect on your own life choices and decisions and where they have, or might take you so it certainly makes you think. 

It's a lovely fantasy novel and I enjoyed reading it.  I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series too.  With it's ice maiden connotations A Girl of White Winter is perfect for this time of year as the first snows fall and winter endures.  Enjoy.

  

WRITER'S DREAM; Studying Texts

There is a cold wind blowing tonight, so I'm snuggled into my four-poster bed, burning Yankee Candle's All Is Bright which smells like fresh fallen snow and I'm sipping on an Irish Cream latte.  While I usually study in silence, tonight I am playing The Box of Delights soundtrack CD in the background.  It's a beautiful tinkling album of pure magic and it takes me back to my childhood, when I would rush home from school to watch the latest episode of the BBC's adaptation of this classic novel.  The soundtrack from the series is just as enchanting, and it makes the perfect music to write to.

I have quite a lot of writing to do this week, so I've been in my study all day, getting a good start on all that needs to be done.  There is lots of seminar prep to do for each week's university lectures.  Every week our professors set a series of prep questions for us to answer online before the next seminar, and I find this to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of the course.  It is a place where one's creativity can take flight, where strong opinions are openly encouraged, to be discussed later in the seminars.  

This is very different from the five years I spent studying psychotherapy as an undergraduate, where we didn't really have prep to do in advance of a lecture, just a lot of essays to write.  I do enjoy the prep and this post-graduate level of weekly commitment.  I have always done my best work when I can work from home, because working from home is my happy place. 

I can't tell you how much I am enjoying this course.  It has been very inspiring and productive so far.  It's great to spend time each week surrounded by people who are all interested in the same topics and everyone is so passionate and opinionated.  This is great raw material for my writing as you can probably imagine! 

Literature is a big discussion point as there is so much core reading to do.  Studying set texts can be a bit boring at times.  You're not reading to be entertained - you're reading to learn, so there is a lot of close reading involved, which is when you basically deconstruct  a text, paragraph by paragraph and sentence by sentence, then formulate an argument and a critical opinion on it, section by section.  It's intricate, complex and time consuming work. 

This type of close reading is invaluable for me as a writer and it is something I have been doing naturally over the years as a result of working in publishing for so long.  Close reading academically takes this skill to a whole new level and it informs one's writing, so in my opinion,  it makes for a better author in the long term, because the more you learn the more you can bring to the page.

In addition to seminar prep, I also have two more assignments to get started on.  I had three to write over Christmas and I was thrilled with my results as I got two Merits and a Distinction, which was a lovely surprise.  I'm hoping to keep up this high level of marks across all my assignments, but there's a long way to go yet before the course is finished. 

In the spring I will be moving to work in a different practice too, and only working one and a half days per week, as opposed to the two and a half days a week that I have been doing.  This is a very positive move for me with fewer days in practice,  so it leaves me more writing and studying time to get on with my assignments and writing commissions.   

As for tonight, I still have my latest psychotherapy column to write and file in with my editor, so I'd best get cracking with that. 

xxx

MUSICAL DOLL; A Valentine Bed Of Roses

Where did you come from baby and were you sent to save me?

I just purchased this album as a little Valentine gift to myself, because why not?  Camila's vocals are always on point, but this is one of my favourite tracks from Romance. I also love everything about this performance; the bed of roses set-design, pale pink baby doll, perfectly waved hair, shimmering make-up, fun choreography and pink microphone...it's a work of art.

 Feminine perfection. 

Happy Valentine's Day

xxx

BOOK NOOK; Battle Scars by Jason Fox

 

"...the scene always arrives to me in snippets, like torn fragments of a photo being pieced together."

I have spent the day reading Battle Scars by Jason Fox from Chanel 4's SAS: Who Dares Wins.  The final episode of the latest series was aired last night, so I wanted to prolong the inspiration and this book has been sitting in my study since it was first released over a year ago.

As Storm Ciara has been raging for the past couple of days, it seemed like the perfect time to curl up with a good book and once I began reading I just couldn't put it down.  I read the entire book in a day, only moving from my comfy place, curled up by the fire, to top up my tea cup and I have thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Battle Scars is the autobiography of Foxy and it tells of his time in the Marines and the Special Forces.  It is a gripping read, beginning with a battle scene that is immediately engaging from the first page.  Yes, it's ghost written, but the story is all his own and Foxy is clearly the narrator as he recounts tales of daring night raids and operations in dangerous war zones.   He gives the reader a clear view (albeit through Night Vision Goggles!) of what it is like to be dropped from a helicopter into immediate battle, where people are shooting at you from all directions.  

It reminded me of the film Black Hawk Down - which to be honest I don't recommend watching, as it is pretty horrific.  Eric Bana is the only saving grace in a catalogue of bloody violence. His collected, composed presence on screen was the only thing that kept me watching the film. He was a very calming influence on this little traumatized audience of one!  I was in floods of tears watching it and its certainly one of those films I don't need to see twice.  I wish I hadn't seen it at all and I don't know why anyone would have recommend it to me. Probably some sick joke on their part. I'll stick to a nice period drama from now on!

Battle Scars is quite similar in places though. The accounts of warfare are pretty brutal, but Foxy tells it all with a strong dash of humour that lightens the mood of what would otherwise be a very dark book.  His sense of humour, even gallows humour, keeps the reader  engaged and ensures that it isn't too triggering a read. 

While the first half of the book recounts his time in the military and the events that resulted in him being diagnosed with PTSD, the second half of the book details how he came to terms with that diagnosis.  For me this was the most inspiring and interesting part of the book.  He opens up about the harsh extremes and subliminal subtleties of what it means to have PTSD - the flashbacks, the memory loss, the fragmented recollections, the insomnia, the need to be nocturnal and sleep during the day (because bad things happen in the dark and its safer to sleep in the sunshine), the irritability and short temper, the sadness and so on.

He even describes his spiral down into depression, suicidal ideation and contemplation, plus his difficulty in getting the professional help he clearly needed.  His first experience of therapy was one that sadly, many people can relate to - the old CBT 'one size fits all' approach, which of course doesn't really work for PTSD.  It just makes large organisations such as the Military and the NHS look like they are doing something for you, when in fact they're just fobbing you off.  In short, it's a good way for them to cover their own backs, but it does nothing for the client except to make them believe that they are broken beyond repair and unsalvageable. 

Eventually though, after many dark nights of the soul and a mind-crushingly shit job as a civilian which he hates, he finds a therapist who understands him and he begins to slowly recover his former zest for life and adventure.  At this point, most memoirs would come to a conclusion, but perhaps because Jason Fox knows first hand how crippling PTSD can be, not to mention how difficult, sometimes impossible, it is to get the correct help, the final pages of the book offer up solutions and tips for helping people with traumatic stress of all kinds.   I respect him even more for that.

This book is not only entertaining and inspiring, it is like medicine to me and I am sure it will be very useful to anyone who has any type of traumatic stress, or for those people who want to better understand what a loved one is experiencing.  It's a cracking adventure of a read and for those with an interest in PTSD, be that professional or personal, I can't recommend Battle Scars enough.

I'm very glad I bought it. It was money well spent.

Happy reading!

Marie x