Return to my Trees – a three hundred mile walk through Welsh forests

 Dod yn ôl fy nghoed...

        To return to my trees.

What on earth is that Welsh phrase supposed to mean? Unsurprisingly, knowing the poetic and lyrical nature of the Welsh nation, it doesn't just mean 'nipping into the woods'. It's a phrase used when someone needs to clear their head, to think again.

Matthew Yeomans, a Cardiff author of Rough Guides translates it as 'to return to a balanced state of mind...' 

Something that has been medically proved to occur when we walk in amongst trees; our blood pressure reduces and so does our anxiety levels. We return from our walk feeling de-stressed and ready for life.

the mythic map

Yeoman, who has been a traveller all his writing life, didn't have to travel far geographically to write this fourth book. Having travelled the world, he decided towalk through the ancient and modern forests of Wales, losing himself in their stories––their natural word, their history, mythology and legends, especially those which appear between the covers of the Mabinogion, the ancient tales of Wales. While Yeoman  explored the paths, he also explored the religions, culture, arts and music of Wales, as well as the industrial past and present of his home nation. 

Yeoman started in the Welsh Marches, at Wentwood,striding across the south of the country, to the Black Mountains. Then he worked northwards, past the Devil's Bridge, through Snowdonia and Llangollen and onwards to the north-eastern border,  stopping at Chirk. 

Such a grand idea: linking the forests throughout a modern country, walking those (often unmarked) paths, talking to the local people and learning about the land. 300 miles is a massive journey, and Yeoman is still walking, often with other people who want to encourage us all to walk.

Recently, I walked just a few miles of Yeoman's Mythic Map, over the Bwlch Mountain near Maesteg, walking with my son and my dog. I love walking with others because that's when the most intimate and interesting chats happen, when you're looking ahead at the path and the trees, listening to the brook and the birds, you can open your heart. 

But walking along introduces a new dimension––not only bringing down stress and puts our lives into perspective––it allows me reach the most creative parts of my mind. When I walk alone, my books, stories, characters and settings accompany me and grow clearer and more real as I progress along my route. Many writers walk to invent their stories. Dickens apparently wrote most mornings and walked every afternoon. I think his characters and their scenarios walked with him, ready for their creation by pen the following
morning.

The writer’s greatest fear is the blank page or screen. Being stuck for something to write is terrifying for a writer, and is a major reason why many would-be writers never take the plunge. But most of our writing is done before we even touch the keyboard or pen. For this, we visit a strange place in our heads – our imagination, where we go though a process of deep listening. When you have the chance to attend to the many voices of your self, letting them settle in your head before writing them down, you unlock something that you didn’t previously know was there. Walking alone allows this.

I've used walking as inspiration for years. It doesn't matter if the surrounds are urban or rural, but naturally it's nicer if there are trees. The most important thing is that I am on my own. When i walk alone, I chatter to my characters, and they chatter back. t. I've walked my way though, scene-building, description, interior monologue and action. I've listen to dialogue develop and worked out my plots. Holding it in your head is the hard part––I've been known to race back on the home stretch, my hands itching for the keyboard––so always take a notebook and pen. 

Kitchen Table Writers has already approached this idea of walking through stories, in this blogpost

On Radio 6, Matthew Yeomans explained how this walk emerged out of the cabin fever of Covid. 'I had to get out…I didn't  know much about trees, but I heard that the Welsh Government had announced a plan to create a national forest of Wales.' 

In his wonderful, inspiring book, he walks to link just some of the woodlands and forests of Wales, seeking an answer to the question; when and how did we humans lose our connection with nature – and how do we find it again? Helpfully, the walk has grown, turning into a book, a mythic map, and a Welsh playlist plus a list of podcasts all of which can be downloaded.

They are matchless,

My trees in winter. 

While I watch telly and eat carbs, 

Put the fire on, the heating up, 

They stand naked to the battle;

Steady for storm, ready for gale. 

Winter trees communicate in semaphore

Black flags against the half-day’s light.

They are gallows for bats,

Rigging for gulls,

Blue cages for robins 

Steeples for stormcocks.

In the cold sun, 

The oaks glow emerald with moss;

Planes strike piebald patterns;

Birch trunks shimmer like a high moon. 

I pull on gloves, hat, scarves,

Brave the cold to watch 

As they wait secure, 

Dreaming sap dreams,

Expectant for spring.                                                 (Trees in Winter by Nina Milton)

Not everyone lives near a forest. But I'm sure you can find some trees to enjoy. So go and enjoy them. Return to them, to clear your head, find a better perspective, solve you problems and, even, perhaps, write a book. You may return to a balanced state of mind. You may even  return to a balanced state of soul.

Symbolism in Writing - The Sun

 

As a writer, it's easy to forget that the sun is a strong and useful literary symbol. There it is, up there in the sky, and indeed at the moment perhaps shinning a tad too brightly for comfort in some places. I'm a druid, so at this time of year, coming up to the Midsummer Solstice, the sun means a lot to me and my life. I am in awe of the incredible strength of the sun and the divine powers that create life. This year (2023)  the solstice falls in the afternoon of 21st of June I'll be celebrating the growth and life that the summer sun brings.

Haleakelã in Hawaii as the sun rises over the volcano

People for millennia have celebrated the sybolism of our  sun – our own bright star, as it shines its light onto the Earth. Because the sun gives us life, growth, brightness and warmth, of course it might be worshiped.  Over the last few weeks in the UK, the sun has shone above us, strongly and brightly, reminding us of the glories of summer and brightening our world with the colour of flowers. The power of the sun at Midsummer is at its most potent, and its ability to make crops grow, is all around us; the earth is fertile with the bounty of life, wildflowers are on every verge, and flower borders are redolent with colour. This imbues us with new hope.

It’s not surprising to find the sun in literature, where it can be a symbol of hope, life, power, growth, health, passion and the higher self, as well as a link to the cycle of life. All this  is used as a representation in fiction and poetry especially. 

In the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro,Clara and the Sun, the sun plays a god-like role. Ishiguro allows it to symbolise the emotional power of having faith in something bigger than oneself. The protagonist, Klara, is an Artificial Friend  – a humanoid machine bought  Josie's parents to help her loneliness. Josie responded badly to being ‘lifted’ and is often seriously ill with something that may have killed her sister.  Klara is solar-powered, so the sun actually does provide nourishment to her—she is sluggish when she doesn’t get enough sunlight. She tries to communicate with the Sun in her mind, as if it is a deity that can read her thoughts. Perhaps because of this, Klara seems to overestimate the effect the Sun has on humans. Josie makes a miraculous recovery on a sunny morning after Klara has pleaded with the Sun to spare her. In the book, as in previous millennia of humanity, the Sun  symbolises the power of believing in something bigger than oneself. And yet, none of the humans around Klara think about the Sun at all. As a result, the novel  represents how people in the futuristic world Ishiguro created have become out of touch with the natural world. 

Although the sun is often seen as a guiding light in the dark or as hope in times of despair, in  Albert Camus' famous and unconventional novel, The Stranger, the sun represents the bright light of the sun which clouds the thoughts and judgment of the protagonist, Meursault. The sun is personified to represent society, which throughout the story frustrates, angers and eventually takes control overs life.

The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row is a memoir by Anthony Ray Hinton recounting his wrongful conviction of capital murder and the death sentence that resulted from the conviction. Hinton's sentence resulted in thirty years of solitary confinement at Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama as he awaited death by electric chair. In the memoir, Hinton recounts both his time in prison and his time as a child and young man. Hinton's mother raised Hinton and his nine older siblings by herself while confronting poverty and racism in rural Alabama. In The Sun Does Shine, the sun symbolizes Ray’s persistent hope for a better life. In maintaining that the sun will never refuse to shine for him, Ray implies that he will always keep up hope, even in his darkest days, because that hope is critical for his survival on death row. 

All Summer in a Day by American writer Ray Bradbury is a short story first published in a Sci Fi magazine in 1954

The story is about a class of students who live on the planet Venus, where the sun is only visible for one hour every seven years. Margot is the only one who remembers the sun from her early childhood on Earth. She describes the sun to the other children as being like a "penny" or "fire in the stove". The other children, refuse to  believe her and  lock Margot in a closet down a tunnel just before their teacher arrives to take them outside to enjoy their one hour of sunshine. In their astonishment and joy, they all forget about Margot and gleefully rush to play outside. When it begins to rain again, the children realise they won't see the sun again for another seven years. They let her out of the closet and stand frozen, ashamed over what they have done now that they finally understand what she had been missing.

One of  my favourite poets, Mary Oliver, looked at the symbology of the sun in a poem of the same name; 

 Have you ever seen 

anything 

in your life 

more wonderful 

than the way the sun, 

every evening, 

relaxed and easy, 

floats toward the horizon 

and into the clouds or the hills, 

or the rumpled sea, 

and is gone-- 

and how it slides again 

out of the blackness, 

every morning, 

on the other side of the world, 

like a red flower 

streaming upward on its heavenly oils, 

say, on a morning in early summer, 

at its perfect imperial distance-- 

and have you ever felt for anything 

such wild love-- 

do you think there is anywhere, in any language, 

a word billowing enough 

for the pleasure 

that fills you, 

as the sun 

reaches out, 

as it warms you 

as you stand there, 

empty-handed-- 

or have you too 

turned from this world-- 

or have you too 

gone crazy 

for power, 

You can learn more about these vivid descriptions and powerful images which invite  us  to reflect on our relationship with the sun at this webpage; https://poeminspiration.com/unlocking-the-meaning-behind-mary-olivers-the-sun-poem/.

In Count that Day Lost, by George Eliot, the sun is the primary image in the poem. Eliot begins the poem with the idea that at the end of day, if a person has been kind just once, that is a day well spent. 

If you sit down at set of sun 

And count the acts that you have done, 

And, counting, find 

One self-denying deed, one word 

That eased the heart of him who heard, 

One glance most kind 

That fell like sunshine where it went -- 

Then you may count that day well spent. 

But if, through all the livelong day, 

You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay -- 

If, through it all 

You've nothing done that you can trace 

That brought the sunshine to one face-- 

No act most small 

That helped some soul and nothing cost -- 

Then count that day as worse than lost.

Finally, there is  

The Sun Also Rises  Ernest Hemingway's first novel. It is said that he meant this to be a piece of nonfiction portraying his friends,  American and British expatriates, who travelled along the Camino de Santiago from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona and watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights.  The title is from a longer quotation from the Bible – One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. Hemingway suggested though, that the book was not so much about a generation being lost, but that "the earth abideth forever." He thought the characters in The Sun Also Rises may have been "battered" but were not lost.

Although the sun may be thought of as a cliché when using it as a writer, there is plenty of flexibility in this symbol. Thinking about what it offers a writer as representation can help you create imagery that really stays with the reader. 

To read more blogposts about symbolism in literature, click here

Getting Your Writing Published PART FOUR – Writing Competitions.

Nina at the Wells Literary Festival

One of the most memorable moments in my writing career, was walking up onto the stage to give a talk at the Wells Literary Festival. I'd been a previous winner of their short story competition and I'd been asked back to talk about my experience. This might not be the first thing you consider, when thinking about the benefits of entering competitions, but  it was a huge event on my calendar. 

I mentioned entering competitions right back at the start of this series of 'getting published' because it's one of the very best ways of making agents and editors sit up and take notice of a new writer, especially one who has just finished their first novel. They are a little more likely to read a few more pages of your submitted chapters if they know someone else liked your writing too. 

It is getting harder and harder to publish short stories. The small-press magazines are over-submitted (and sadly, not well read), and most weekly women's magazines have stopped including a short story. For over ten years I regularly had a story in women’s magazines - especially Bella who seemed happy for me to write dramatically about family issues, or sustaining relationships, rather than starting them (Bauer paid very well; I sent my daughter through her half scholarship on my Bella earnings), but now I aim my short stories at the anthology market, which is partly fuelled by competitions, and I recommend you do too, because agents and indie publishers do keep their eye on the winning contributions. 

Competitions are good for individual writers. They can help you work out how effective your writing is, in comparison to the work of others. They can help you push to finish things, and to polish them well. Winning can be quickly effective, gaining you kudos on your writing CV that might help get you a position on an MA course, or even introduce you to an agent. There are competitions for all disciplines and genres, especially short fiction, flash fiction, novel writing, scriptwriting, poetry and writing for young people. 

There are tricks and keys that open the door to getting into competition shortlists. Stories with originality that stand out in some way often do very well. Although ‘quieter’, beautifully written stories can win competitions, stories with a ‘tingle factor’ are bound to attract the judges' attention, especially after ploughing through hundreds, even thousands of similar, often derivative entries. 

Jo Verity, who won the Richard and Judy prize, says this..'I’d been writing for about 2 years. I happened to be off work with food poisoning – whiling away the time watching the Richard & Judy Show. It was the last chance to enter their short story competition (this was before the Richard & Judy Bookclub started) and I happened to have a story ready to go. I posted it off and forgot all about it. A couple of months later I got a call to say that my story was in the final 15 (from 17,000 entries) and could I go up to London the following week when the winner would be announced live on air. It was very exciting. Martina Cole, Suzi Feay and Tony Parsons were the judges. I was flabbergasted when they picked my story as the winner especially as I’d sent the same story out to a couple of competitions and it had done nothing.'

The prize was to have the story published in The Independent on Sunday, under the title Rapid Eye Movement.  The story relates the experience of a depressed young woman who gives up her job and cuts herself off from her family to perfect ‘lucid dreaming’. By the end, she’s spending most of her life in her dream world. 

One of my students came up with a 'tingle factor' story and successfully submitted it, to her absolute delight; Read her blogpost on her experience of entering a competition… here. Like  Jo Verity, my student had also had this story rejected in another competition. So bear in mind, when you don't win, time and again, that the choice of winner is both arbitrary and subjective. Judges are like the rest of us––they have their likes and dislikes. So long as you are sure you've proofread you work carefully, and that the story holds up under scrutiny, do submit it again. 

Prize winners all.

What is that scrutiny? Crucial to a winning short story are convincing characters, a strong and appealing core theme and an ability to provoke empathy or inspiration. Aim for coherent progression, rigorous construction and a satisfying conclusion. Many a fine story lacks ‘closure’, leaving the reader with untidy loose ends or an unresolved mystery. The author A S Byatt, suggests that: 'a good short story knows its ending before it is begun, it is always working towards its end…A good short story establishes its own rhythm at its very beginning, and the reader has a sense of the rhythm reaching ahead, towards the end…'

Read about AM Byatt in this Kitchen Table blogpost 

Make sure every word counts because word count is perhaps  more importance than anything else. Every competition has its rules and you must stick within them. Do not send out your 2,500 word story to a competition if the remit is 'less than 2,000 words'.

It's also best to keep to the short story maxim of 'few characters, little time and a satisfying resolve'. However, many a fine short story has successfully handled a bevy of characters, an extended timeline, or an ending that lacks closure. It might appear, at first glance, to be a collection of vivid but disjointed impressions. But the story still has to be rigorous in its construction; it must be a whole.

Most poetry writers start their publishing career by submitting their individual poems to poetry competitions. Your local library is as good a place to check these out as searching online. When submitting poems, try reading the previous winners’ entries, which give you an idea of which types of poems the judges enjoy. Be sure to read all the qualifications properly, checking for specific writing styles, points of view, settings, and especially length. Naturally, polish your work before submitting Use proper formatting within the title and description areas, and don’t use crazy fonts which will just annoy the readers.Start with smaller and lesser-known poetry competitions first, especially if finance is an issue, where you may have a better chance of being noticed.  If you are submitting your poem by snail mail, be sure to read over the poem after you print it and make any necessary changes.

Finding competitions across the disciplines is not difficult. They are all over the internet, and in every writing magazine. They advertise because most intend to make a profit, hence the entry fee. This often feels excessive, but it covers costs, pays the judges and often allows the prizes to glitter. 

There is nothing wrong with going for those glittering prizes, but the opposition is stiff, so don’t be put off by smaller prizes or contests that offer nothing more than the possibility of being published (especially in print). This always looks good on a growing CV.

Keep persevering…this can often be the best way to succeed. And –– by the way –– good luck!

Symbolism in Literature – The Sea

Full fathom five thy father lies;  

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell.  

In literature, symbols are often settings, images or other motifs that stand in for bigger ideas.  Poets, novelists and dramatists use then to give their work meaning and resonance.

In this new occasional series, I'm going to look at some of the symbols used in this way, and ask why writers have chosen to use them. I'm starting with the sea, because it is a primal symbol of life. The ocean is of course, where we believe the beginning of life on Earth was formed.

The Sea, the Sea                                                                                                      Iris Murchoch was for a long time my favourite writer. I referenced her in my third novel Beneath the Tor. Goodness, love and freedom were lifelong philosophical concerns of Murdoch and she uses the theme of 'virtue and perception' in her Booker Prize winner The Sea, the Sea, her 18th novel.

Murdoch's  protagonist, Charles Arrowby, has bought Shruff End, a house with no electricity perched at the edge of the North Sea.  Arrowby is a pompous figure with weird tastes in food, difficult to like, but he quickly obsessed me as I got into the book. He wants to: become a hermit: put myself in a situation where I can honestly say that I have nothing else to do but to learn to be good. Sadly, Arrowby soon finds out just how hard it is to be good.

The Sea, the Sea  is said to be inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The irritating Arrowby echoes Prospero’s attempt to transform magic into spirit, echoed, by Ariel's Song, which opened this blogpost. Martin Amis said that Murdoch…believes in everything: true love, veridical visions, magic, monsters, pagan spirits…Arrowby imagines the sea below his house to be the home of a hideous monster, and Murdoch brilliantly depicts the distinction between imagination and fantasy, and the vital importance of negotiating these dangers. Of course, it's bound to end with a drowning – rather like…

David Copperfield                                                                                                   One of the best-known writers to use the sea regularly as a symbol was Charles Dickens. (He also loved to feature rivers, especially the Thames, in his stories, but that, as they say, is another blogpost.) As a child, he'd visit Yarmouth. Towards the end of the book, David Copperfield remembers the sea off Yarmouth as connected to the disasters of his youth, and an element that takes loved ones away. Dickens is

using the sea as an unknown and powerful force in the lives of the characters, beyond human control. Towards the end of the book he returns.to find his old schoolmate drowned; And on that part of it where she and I had looked for shells, two children--on that part of it where some lighter fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered by the wind--among the ruins of the home he had wronged--I saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school.

The World Is Too Much With Us                                                                                  

Wordsworth's lovely sonnet uses the sea to symbolise the wild, passionate, creative force of Nature:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. 

The Life of Pi                                                                                                                                    

The Man-Booker winner in 2002, is mostly set on the ocean as Pi struggles to survive a hazardous journey. The sea symbolises one of the main themes of the book –  the will to live – while the lifeboat Pi is in with the tiger Richard Parker, would symbolise a place of both danger and safety. This is a complex novel, which uses fantasy, magical realism and meta-fiction to weave its tale.

Moby-Dick                                                                                                                     A novel set almost fully on the ocean waves of the 19th century, Moby-Dick has a myriad of themes, especially that of revenge and pursuit. But Herman Melville uses the sea to represent some very subtle ideas, including the way Ishmael's journey in the whaler is also a metaphorical voyage of understanding, Melville doesn't stop there though; the sea becomes beauty and chaos, instability and mystery. You can read more about the book here.

The Old Man and the Sea                                                                                          An epic two-day battle between man and a marlin, The Old Man and the Sea, was
one of the first adult books I read as a growing child. Its real significance was probably lost on me at the time, but  there are deeper meanings behind Hemingway's story than just a tussle with a fish. The old man is said to represent humanity, while the fish signifies achievement or purpose in life. According to Hemingway, man is most worthy in isolation because he has to work and survive on his own. The sea, in the novel, allows Hemmingway to describe the struggles all of us endure in life.

I Started Early                                                                                                           Finally there is the idea that the sea, in all its wild fierceness can represent sexuality. Look at this poem by Emily Dickinson, which starts as innocently as you like...

I started Early – Took my Dog –

And visited the Sea –

The Mermaids in the Basement

Came out to look at me –

And Frigates – in the Upper Floor.  

Extended Hempen Hands –

Presuming Me to be a Mouse –

Aground –  upon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide

Went past my simple Shoe –

And past my Apron – and my Belt

And past my Boddice – too –

And made as He would eat me up –

As wholly as a Dew

Opon a Dandelion's Sleeve –

And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind –

I felt His Silver Heel

Opon my Ancle – Then My Shoes

Would overflow with Pearl –

Until We met the Solid Town –

No One He seemed to know –

And bowing – with a Mighty look –

At me – The Sea withdrew –

 Mermaids in the basement? Or the subconscious perhaps? The hard, upright frigates? The sea itself might awaken sexual feelings as you watch it drive itself forward, 'past your bodice'  but for the 19th century lady, the Solid Town of social expectation would make the those desires withdraw...

On the Gallows                                                                                                        
I've used the theme of the sea in my writing, especially On the Gallows, the second of the Shaman Mysteries, in which a young girl's body is found in the sea off Bridgewater Bay... 

Ahead was a luminous sheen of grey. The Bristol Channel. 

 Like Ellen, I examined the desolation of the bay. The tide was low, and the stone causeway could be seen clearly, a formation of flattened boulders with a squiggly pattern across the far shore made up of shingle, rock and mudflat. At its far edge was a ridge where hardness fell away into sea. A cold wind blew in, but the water only rippled slightly, as if it might be on its way to freezing. 

  From the first section of deep water rose a skeletal structure, ragged with seaweed. It felt as bare as bones, and the wind moaned through it. Or was it the cooling tower that moaned, in sheer misery of its location?  

 The cooling tower could have been a gallows, a complex gallows. I could see how it might trap a victim, cling on to her. I kept staring over the bay as the light failed, desperate to get my thoughts into shape, but my heart was racing too fast, keeping in time with the wind that flapped in my ears. 

 'It’s odd,' said Ellen, 'because I didn’t think about it, when we agreed a time on the phone. But this was when I came here. The light was almost gone.'

 I nodded. I’d known that. It was how I’d wanted it. 'What were you doing,' I said, desperate to ask if she’d come in stilettos on that occasion. 'Walking the dog, something like that?'

'They didn’t tell you?'

'No, The police never pass on personal details.'

She began walking towards the beach as if it was beckoning her. When she got to the fence, she stopped, pulled her hands out of her pockets and gripped it. 

'Looking back, I can see just how crazy I’d got. But it was a day out of hell. Complete hell. Had some hell-like days in my life, but God, not many worse than that.' 

Have fun in your own ideas and try using the symbology of the sea in your  next piece of writing – let us know how you've done so by adding comments below this post.

To read more blogposts about symbolism in literature, click here