Winging its Way

It’s just over two months now, since Remember No More was published and we celebrated its launch at the Wyeside in Builth Wells. We had no idea what to expect. We knew only that there would be at least two of us, several boxes of books and my editor, Caroline Oakley, who had travelled all the way from Aberystwyth with said boxes and with other boxes, containing wine. If all else failed, we could open a bottle or two and toast its departure from the nest between ourselves.

Caroline felt sure there could be thirty in the audience, which was terrifying enough, but nothing prepared me for the numbers of people who were kind enough to help us with that celebration – and especially the lovely cornet section from Llandrindod Wells Silver Band, who began the evening with a rousing fanfare and a rendition of Happy Birthday (for my birthday the previous day, although it was just as apt for the book’s publication day). When we looked through all the photographs later, we counted 65 people in the audience, and they were amazing. They smiled their encouragement as I introduced sections of the text, they laughed in all the right places and they clapped enthusiastically. It was such a brilliant experience. As well as the band, there was cake and there were flowers, all organised on the quiet and all very gratefully received. People had been working hard behind the scenes without me even realising, which made it all the more special and memorable.

It still feels surreal, remembering that amazing evening and to see the book, my book, on the shelves in bookshops and in various places across the globe. It’s been spotted in the foothills of the Himalays, in the USA and New Zealand but also in the rather wonderful Siop Inc and in Siop y Pethau in Aberystwyth, both of which I used to haunt, looking for ‘easy’ Welsh novels while I was attempting to learn Welsh, twice a week, in Laura Place. People have written to say they read the book on the beach in Lanzarote or by the pool in Abu Dhabi. It seems strange to think of it there, away from its home in the foothills of the Cambrian Mountains and I find myself wondering if it has sand between its pages or sun cream fingerprints on the cover.

Now I have to get used to the idea of publicity – of talking about Remember No More, about the plot, the location and the characters. I’ve been asked to read at the Hay Festival with the lovely Hay Writers’ Circle, to sign books at the Royal Welsh Show in Llanelwedd and to discuss the importance of place in the novel at Penarth Literature Festival. It’s an honour to be asked and I’m sure, once I start talking about it, I will be less nervous than I feel right now. I want to do it, and Honno justice and to enjoy the moment.

The whole process, from the first paragraphs written in 2013 to signing the finished article on that evening in March, has been a revelation and these past weeks have been stunning. So many people have taken the time and trouble to tell me how much they enjoyed the book. They have written reviews and blog posts, sent me incisive interview questions and cheered from the sidelines. And they have bought the book. I heard today that it will be reprinted, which is incredible news.

So now, as I head back to the writing shed I know that there are people out there who are excited as I am to know what Julie Kite will do next. It’s a wonderful feeling to know when you ask people to invest their precious time to read your words, that they think it’s time well spent. Thanks to everyone who has been involved in getting us this far. It’s appreciated so much and it makes me even more determined to write the very best that I can.

I’m going in, and I may be some time.

Remember No More published by Honno 16th March 2017, also available from Amazon  http://bit.ly/2jqDilL  http://amzn.to/2k1kGJx

 

 

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Letter to My Younger Self

This year’s Lady Denman Cup short story competition was an interesting one.  ‘Write a letter to your younger self’, it said.  ‘What advice would you give yourself?’  All in five hundred words.  I knew my younger self would have steadfastly ignored any form of instruction, so I erred on the side of reassurance.  It seemed to work.  I won the second prize of £50 of book tokens.  In real life, though, I’ve been even luckier.

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‘To:  Miss Fox, Summit Farm, March 1976

You won’t believe me, but there will come a time when your inability to perfect the use of an eyelash curler and your clumsy Carry On Cleo eyeliner skills won’t matter.  Where you sit on the bus will have absolutely no effect on your chances of getting married, and the numbers printed on your bus ticket won’t seal your fate.  Trust me.

You will barely remember Mr Pickup’s name, let alone his habit of pointing out your mathematical inadequacies to the whole class.  Nor will Mr Mellor’s prophecy come true.  You will discover that you can do Chemistry, and that actually, him throwing you out of his class in Fourth Year, forcing you to take Beginners’ German, will change your whole future.  In a twist of karma you will meet your amazing, kind and talented husband while working for a German chemical company.

Oh, and at the age of 42, you will emerge from an Open University graduation ceremony clutching a first-class degree in Chemistry and Geology.  You will therefore be able to write fairly legibly on a bus, and you will have revised oxidation reactions and crystal lattices whilst pushing a shopping trolley round Tesco.

Mrs Butcher, though, is absolutely spot-on.  You will always sew as though you’re wearing mittens and you never will master the Quick Unpick.  The poor woman who attempted to teach you Domestic Science (and whose name you will consign to age-related oblivion) will be remembered only for insisting you bake melting moments which damaged Grandma’s top set and a cottage loaf which even the pigs refused to eat.

Don’t worry, I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you will remember Dad.  You won’t recall, forty years later, what his voice sounded like or how he walked, but that sense of him, the person who made you what you will become, will still be with you – his love of horses, his desire to write, his urge to better himself and for you to do the same.  You’ll eventually recognise his ‘you could do better’ as frustration, not criticism.  You will also accept, maybe twenty years from now, that just because you were the last person to see him that night, you couldn’t have stopped him.  Nobody could.  Sometimes the demons win.

You will remember summer mornings, sneaking out of the house at daybreak, riding bareback up to Cobden Edge with the mist still hanging in the valley and the call of the curlew the only sound apart from hoof beats, watching as the world wakes below you.  These moments you will remember always, they will define you.

You will never follow the crowd and you will, eventually, stop apologising for that.  Promise to remember that you can do anything you set your mind to.  Oh, and don’t ever fret about housework – it’s as over-rated as being able to use a slide-rule.

Be kind, be patient and enjoy every single second of your amazing life.’

 

Beginnings

I’m still sneaking a glance at the letter every now and again, just to make absolutely sure I’ve not imagined it … and it’s still there. The striking pink logo with the wise owl perched on top, and the sentence in the middle that says ‘Publication is scheduled for March 2017’.  Honno – the lovely, supportive and encouraging people based in Aberystwyth – are publishing my first crime novel.

This is my second novel.  The very first was a story about a spaceman by the imaginative name of Fred, who landed in my own North Manchester suburb some time in 1965.  He befriended a little girl and her brother and, without their parents noticing, lived in their house for a whole summer holidays.  They had huge adventures together until, early in September, young Fred was called back to the Mother Ship and waved goodbye as his little space pod passed over the Ship Canal.  Like me, the little girl in the story was seven years old.

One wet Wednesday afternoon, lovely Mrs Richmond had told us to write a story about a friendship.  Several weeks later, as she handed me my seventh blue exercise book with wide lines and Lancashire County Council emblazoned on the front, she smiled.

‘When will we be able to read this masterpiece?’ she asked.

I don’t know what happened to my ‘book’, but Fred stayed with me for a long time.  I even remember knitting him with scraps of wool from my Grandmother’s ‘bits’ drawer.  He was one-legged, green, wearing red and white striped shorts and sporting a pipe-cleaner aerial.  I must have been an odd child.

I wrote then as I do now, fifty years later, to create another world with places and characters which come alive as my pen scratches across the page.  For me writing is like reading, but it is even more all-consuming, totally engrossing.  I’ve been told that I must have an eye on publication when I write, whether it’s short stories or this, my first ‘grown-up’ novel.  I can honestly say that isn’t true.  I write because I have stories to tell and there’s no better way of spending time that I can think of.

But then why, all these years later, am I still disappointed that Fred was consigned to the stock room at Alkrington Moss County Primary School and then who knows where?

All I do know for sure is that becoming a Honno author is one of the most exciting things I can think of.  A friend said to me recently ‘enjoy every second of the process’.  I think I may just be able to do that.