How I wrote FOUR HOURS FROM LONDON (#1NEW BEGINNINGS)
Blog: FOUR HOURS FROM LONDON (#1 New Beginnings)
My latest novel, planned as the first in a series, is set on the beautiful island of Gran Canaria, where I am lucky enough to have lived for twenty odd years. When I find myself returning from a visit to London and catch my first glimpse of the island from the air, there is always a lump in my throat and a tremor in my stomach, an emotional response. I may well have had a rewarding trip to London but I’m home. It's a good feeling.
If you wonder why I haven’t written much about Gran Canaria in previous novels, it’s because this novel has taken me at least ten years to write. At first, it was a long, unruly novel and my editor was rightly critical of it. She did give me advice about how to cut it and focus on certain sections in different ways, but my attempted rewrites didn’t work for me. I put it aside for several years and wrote other things. I did extract some of the characters and use them in short stories. A good exercise. One of them, Betrayal, was published locally in The Canary News, thanks to editor, Edward Timon. The rather ironic friendship between two older women, Ellen and Queenie, is given another airing in FOUR HOURS FROM LONDON.
Without consciously copying the structure of Bernadine Evaristo’s GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER, a book a really admire, I now realise I must have been influenced by it when I came up with a different structure for FOUR HOURS FROM LONDON. Once I decided to give each friendship its own space to develop, I knew I could start to write this novel again.
At first, I thought the new version of the book might be a series of short stories based on different friendships and it certainly started off that way. But then one friendship, the one between Kat and Gina, became more important than the others and I had to give the characters more time and space for their relationship to develop and change.
The idea of characters becoming subsidiary characters in stories that focused on other friendships, was the intention from the beginning of this rewrite. It seemed to me that it was inevitable that on a small island you would come across the same people in the expat community again. Even the ladies of Las Palmas may meet a few people connected with Timeshare touts in the South. Or even a drag queen! When living abroad, expats tend to mix with people of their own nationality, many of them unlike anyone they would have met if they had stayed in their own country. These differences are something that interest me as a writer. Difference creates tension that, I hope, will keep you reading.
Bringing some of the characters together again at the end, seemed to me the best way to end a novel that, at times, might seem to be going off at tangents. Gina’s art exhibition serves this unifying purpose, but is also a celebration of her creativity. It's an indication that she has banished the depression and nightmares of the past, at least temporarily, and is looking forward with considerable optimism to the future.
The novel has created a bit of a buzz here on the island. Potential readers, who live on Gran Canaria, probably think they’ll be able to recognise certain likenesses between my characters and certain residents. I can assure you that no characters are drawn from a particular person. Authors are observers and, just as magpies like to collect shiny objects, so writers collect personality traits and actual life stories to help create their characters and give the semblance of reality to what happens. The characters and the events in this novel, as in my other fiction writing, come from the snippets of memory I’ve assimilated from years of being a people watcher, aided and abetted by an often too vivid imagination.
I hope that whether you live or holiday on Gran Canaria or not, you will find the premise of the novel interesting as it examines the nature of friendship and relationships, the power of creativity and the joys and restrictions of island life. I like to think it makes some serious points, but my main intention is to write a good story, that has its sad and amusing moments. Enjoy!
When you’ve read the novel, please spend a few moments to write an honest review on Goodreads, Amazon and anywhere else you can think of, to help potential readers decide whether to buy it or not.
My latest novel, planned as the first in a series, is set on the beautiful island of Gran Canaria, where I am lucky enough to have lived for twenty odd years. When I find myself returning from a visit to London and catch my first glimpse of the island from the air, there is always a lump in my throat and a tremor in my stomach, an emotional response. I may well have had a rewarding trip to London but I’m home. It's a good feeling.
If you wonder why I haven’t written much about Gran Canaria in previous novels, it’s because this novel has taken me at least ten years to write. At first, it was a long, unruly novel and my editor was rightly critical of it. She did give me advice about how to cut it and focus on certain sections in different ways, but my attempted rewrites didn’t work for me. I put it aside for several years and wrote other things. I did extract some of the characters and use them in short stories. A good exercise. One of them, Betrayal, was published locally in The Canary News, thanks to editor, Edward Timon. The rather ironic friendship between two older women, Ellen and Queenie, is given another airing in FOUR HOURS FROM LONDON.
Without consciously copying the structure of Bernadine Evaristo’s GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER, a book a really admire, I now realise I must have been influenced by it when I came up with a different structure for FOUR HOURS FROM LONDON. Once I decided to give each friendship its own space to develop, I knew I could start to write this novel again.
At first, I thought the new version of the book might be a series of short stories based on different friendships and it certainly started off that way. But then one friendship, the one between Kat and Gina, became more important than the others and I had to give the characters more time and space for their relationship to develop and change.
The idea of characters becoming subsidiary characters in stories that focused on other friendships, was the intention from the beginning of this rewrite. It seemed to me that it was inevitable that on a small island you would come across the same people in the expat community again. Even the ladies of Las Palmas may meet a few people connected with Timeshare touts in the South. Or even a drag queen! When living abroad, expats tend to mix with people of their own nationality, many of them unlike anyone they would have met if they had stayed in their own country. These differences are something that interest me as a writer. Difference creates tension that, I hope, will keep you reading.
Bringing some of the characters together again at the end, seemed to me the best way to end a novel that, at times, might seem to be going off at tangents. Gina’s art exhibition serves this unifying purpose, but is also a celebration of her creativity. It's an indication that she has banished the depression and nightmares of the past, at least temporarily, and is looking forward with considerable optimism to the future.
The novel has created a bit of a buzz here on the island. Potential readers, who live on Gran Canaria, probably think they’ll be able to recognise certain likenesses between my characters and certain residents. I can assure you that no characters are drawn from a particular person. Authors are observers and, just as magpies like to collect shiny objects, so writers collect personality traits and actual life stories to help create their characters and give the semblance of reality to what happens. The characters and the events in this novel, as in my other fiction writing, come from the snippets of memory I’ve assimilated from years of being a people watcher, aided and abetted by an often too vivid imagination.
I hope that whether you live or holiday on Gran Canaria or not, you will find the premise of the novel interesting as it examines the nature of friendship and relationships, the power of creativity and the joys and restrictions of island life. I like to think it makes some serious points, but my main intention is to write a good story, that has its sad and amusing moments. Enjoy!
When you’ve read the novel, please spend a few moments to write an honest review on Goodreads, Amazon and anywhere else you can think of, to help potential readers decide whether to buy it or not.
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