bookshops – Nastasya Parker

Staying Creative

This Week’s Bit of String: An accident-prone day

You know those days when everything goes wrong? Last Sunday, I had a few chores left on my weekend list. I needed to change the sheets, but inadvertently laundered a tissue with the bed linens. It avenged its fate by leaving sticky fragments all over everything.

I stepped outside to put some recycling in the bin, an opportunity also to chat with our neighbour in the adjoining half of the duplex. This brought up a fencing dispute which is provoking grief and peevishness on both sides.

While we attempted to reach a compromise in the sunshine, I saw my cat speed round the house and dart in the open back door with a pigeon in his mouth. I spent the next 20 minutes waiting for him to finish tearing into it behind the couch, and at least as much time after that shifting the furniture, picking up pieces, hoovering feathers, cleaning the carpet, and wiping bloodstains off the lamp cable.

In the afternoon, I needed to clean the fridge. I dropped an egg, it slipped underneath the appliance, I had to empty the fridge completely and move it and clean behind it. When wiping the worktops in preparation for hoovering, I tipped a bit of water on my laptop, which has thankfully survived unscathed.

With half my chores taking up more time and aggravation than planned, I reached the evening exhausted (but with a clean house!) and thought, am I actually going to write today? I barely felt human, let alone like a writer.

The Great Humaniser

Maybe I was a walking disaster because, after a week of flu, I was still battling extra fatigue and some headaches. My husband was now in the throes of the virus so the house was generally miserable, had been for a little while, and wouldn’t be imminently abating.

*Thank goodness it’s been sunny and springy or I’d have been seriously depressed.*

When I’m sick, or drained after being sick, I refer to myself as “running a reduced service.” I still have to do laundry and basic cleaning and cook and if not get groceries myself, arrange for them. Have to help my family in whatever way possible, and must get back to school to do my job as hastily as I can. The result is I’m doing nothing but work and chores; no extra exercise or writing sessions. No social gatherings or outings for entertainment, or long hikes. It’s a drag and can continue for weeks because a reduced service is still fairly demanding and I’m rarely getting a decent night’s sleep.

I don’t know if it’s the best physical remedy, but the best emotional one might be to write anyway. That’s what I did Sunday. I bashed out 500 more words of a character sketch, prepping a new novel. I went from feeling I was barely surviving, to remembering I am capable of adding beauty and empathy to the world through what I create.

Any creative endeavour brings out our humanity and even transcends it.

Why We Write

The past couple weeks reminded me why we write (or make music, or create art). Even while I was sick, if I could get a few minutes of fresh air, and perk myself up listening to quality tunes, I could then engage in some writerly activity most days. That creative feeling fought off some of the glumness.

Here are ways creativity elevates us:

Wearing pyjamas for the 4th day running doesn’t mean we can’t write a piquant description of the flowers sprouting outside or the cat’s sleeping position. Tip: Take 5 or 10 minutes, scribble about what you see. Write your favourite line from those scribbles on a post-it or take a picture on your phone as a reminder of your formidable talent.

The more we practise bits of writing, the more we notice without trying. When an articulate description comes to mind, we feel observant; we feel less like we’re missing out on life. Even if that’s a clever phrase about how cough syrup tastes, or the pound of a headache.

We can still be part of a community. Being on Twitter isn’t always a positive experience these days, but I was running the profile for the Women Writers Network while I was poorly. My Tweet about a recent visit to Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, an independent bookshop in Bath, received over 350 likes, and dozens of responses with other writerly/ literary types adding their indie bookseller recommendations. It turned into a real bright spot. If you’re low on energy, taking a few minutes to encourage and lift up others on social media can boost our mood.

When we’re forced to take a break, it knocks our confidence. I found that, though I’d kept some semblance of writing in my life, I still felt disheartened about picking up bigger projects again. On Saturday while I was feeling a bit better, I sat in the sunny dining room and did a watercolour based on a favourite place, where I’m setting my next novel. I’m not an artist and don’t have much experience with watercolour, but I made myself complete it. This took less mental energy than writing, but plenty of courage. And I don’t hate how it turned out. It reminded me it’s ok to bash out writing too. We just have to go for it.

Do you use creativity as an antidote when things go wrong? What are your tips for maintaining a creative state of mind when low on strength?

Seven Wanders of 2018

So…2018. How was it for you? My year got a little ploddy. A little spend-all-the-free-time-dragging-through-housework-while-sleep-deprived-from-illness-and-injury-ish. A little every-outing-or-escapade-requires-double-chores-on-surrounding-days-and-heaps-of-TLC-to-convince-family-members-to-go-along-with-it-y.

That demolished my writing and reading routines for the last couple of months, and honestly, I kind of allowed it to. But while I haven’t got a finished draft of my current novel, or a publisher for my other one, and I was mostly long listed in 2018 with just a couple of shortlistings—those hard-plotted outings and escapades I cajoled my family into? They were awesome.

When I look back, it’s not the stresses my mind turns to; it’s the adventures shared. It was tricky to narrow down the top explores of 2018, but here they are, the ones that most charged up the imagination and, well, made life grand.

Hay-on-Wye: It’s got tonnes of books, and a river. Pretty much my two favourite things! Oh, and plenty of nice places to eat. Or just buy a Welsh cake. This year was my first at the late May literary festival there, and I took in such a fantastic range of lectures and interviews. I also enjoyed wandering the streets and soaking in the literary vibe, chasing waterfalls, and watching the sun set over the river.

Murder and Mayhem, a uniquely decorated thriller and mystery shop with hounds and a full moon painted below the window. — One of the many enticing specialist bookshops in Hay.

Me standing over the River Wye, on one of the bridge supports. — At the River Wye, always trying to get closer to the water.

A child climbs around the giant letters spelling HAY in the centre of the festival tents. — That happy festival vibe, fun for all ages.

Portishead/ Window Wanderland: Portishead is one of our nearer coastal towns, but we hadn’t explored it yet. Turns out it has a lighthouse, and a lido! Throw in some grand beach houses, a beach crissed and crossed with driftwood, and a brand new lifeboat station, all making this an exciting discovery.

Sunset over Battery Point Lighthouse — Sunset at Battery Point Lighthouse

An image of a soldier climbing a ladder painted onto the lido wall in memorium. — Street art on the side of the lido

It was the Window Wanderland event that brought us there in February. I’ve written previously about Window Wanderland, when neighbourhoods decorate their windows for all to come and see. In addition to the Portishead one, we also returned to the Bishopston area of Bristol to take in their window displays, because they truly are stellar.

Two-storey tree display made of paper inside a residential window. — A tree grows in Portishead

Paper window display of Mario — Bishopston’s unique displays included this Super Mario one.

Bristol: This has made my top seven before. But it holds such a wealth of routes and sights, I had to include it again. Plus, I’ve now had a piece performed there so I can feel I belong (maybe one day I can say the same about Hay). Just some of the ways Bristol reminds us life is good: street art to marvel at on every corner, diverse museum exhibits from Wildlife Photographer of the Year to African fabrics to Japanese woodblock prints, milkshakes at Rocatillos and pie or pizza at The Stable and roasted white hot chocolate at Mrs. Potts’ Chocolate Shop, and over 800 games to choose from at the board game cafe Chance & Counters on the lovely Christmas Steps.

Cormorant on a pier post, with Arnolfini Gallery and other harbour buildings in the background. — A cormorant enjoys the Bristol Harbour view.

Diverse murals on high rises by a steepled entrance. — A street of murals, by the historic St. John’s Gate into the old city.

Balloon-shaped lights above the shopping centre with a glowing Christmas tree ahead. — Festive homage to the famous Bristol Balloon Fiesta.

Canals, and More Canals: I know, this is a repeat, too. But my weekly hike along the Stroudwater canal continues to be a highlight, the resident waterfowl and the changing angles of sunlight affording new views in the same places every week. Plus we explored further on the Gloucester and Sharpness canal this year, climbing around the beached hulks at Purton’s ship graveyard and the marinas at Saul Junction and Sharpness. Finally, there’s the last remaining stretches of towpath on the Thames and Severn, from Stroud to Chalford, the beautiful little town carved into a hill, and then from Chalford to Sapperton, the longest canal tunnel.

A snowscape with swans swimming down the canal in front of a bridge. — The Ebley Swan family in the snow, Stroudwater Canal

Rainbow over bridge and gatehouse against a stormy sky. — Rainbow over Nutshell Bridge and gatehouse, Stroudwater Canal

Turbine over gleaming, choppy canal waters — Turbine at Sharpness, Gloucester and Sharpness Canal

Old exposed boards and rusted iron joins on a grassy bank. — One of the hulks in Purton’s ‘ship graveyard,’ Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. Old, disused ships were intentionally beached along the strip between the canal and the Severn river to stop erosion.

Mount Osceola: Following 2017’s excursions, I vowed to climb a higher mountain in 2018. And I did, conquering my first 4,000+ footer, in the White Mountains of my home state, New Hampshire. Climbing Mount Osceola was a bit like 2018: hard work scrambling over substantial scattered stones and patches of steep-ish rock face but in the end we had some incredible memories. And felt a tad awesome.

Summit views over the White Mountain range in the Appalachians. — The view from the top.

Outer rings of a tree stump, beside a patch of clover with a single blossom. — Smaller snapshots of beauty along the trail.

Minneapolis: One might not think of this Minnesota city in a top list of US destinations. However, we ended up there while taking our son to a gaming event, and loved it. Starting with the Walker Art Gallery’s wondrous sculpture garden, next crossing through Loring Park and Greenway seeing all the fountains and plant boxes and tiny free libraries and black squirrels (still can’t quite get over those…), we then traversed the city using the Skyway. The Skyway is a network of elevated passages between and through buildings in the city centre, allowing people to get about traffic-free and safe from the elements (in our case, it provided some relief from 100 Fahrenheit/ 38-degree Celsius temperatures). Using these passages, we found our way across the city to my first ever look at the great Mississippi River. Here, the river is flanked by old flour mills with an interesting history of rivalries, all chronicled in the Mill Ruins Park and Museum. I love a place that honours its ruins while progressing in an environment- and walker-friendly way!

Giant spoon bridged over a reflective pond with a bright cherry perched on its tip. — Viewing the city’s skyline from Walker Sculpture Garden, across the iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.

Fountain like a dandelion clock. — Loring Park fountain

Historic Gold Medal Flour building in the foreground, alongside the river. — Old mills and the Mississippi River

Seville: Talk about incorporating history. This southern Spanish city has Roman aqueducts still standing in the middle of busy roads. Its signature spire, Giralda Tower, was built in the 12th century as a minaret under Islamic rule. The cathedral’s incredible craftsmanship must surely have been financed through genocide and slave labour during the Age of the Explorers, when Columbus, Magellan, and their cohorts sailed triumphantly up and down the River Guadalquivir, welcomed by the Torre del Oro. The current Royal Alcazar Palace was largely built using moorish designs under a 14th-century Christian king known as Pedro the Cruel or Pedro the Just, depending who tells the story. It is still used as a royal residence 650 years later. We loved wending our way through the tight little warren of streets to these attractions, shaded by orange trees and palms and ancient gleaming facades affording us the occasional glimpse into ornate courtyards filled with greenery. Also, there was tapas. And sangria.

Roman aqueduct between lanes of traffic, including cars and horse-drawn carriage. — Part of the Roman aqueduct

Tower viewed from across the river, with boats in front of it and palm trees and other city buildings around. — The Torre del Oro, or Tower of Gold, at sunset

Tiles and mosaics in a moorish arch. — Close-up in the Real (Royal) Alcazar. I could spend hours looking at these patterns.

Rooftops of the old city — Seville’s roofscape at sunrise, Giralda minaret at the centre background

A year with this much excitement and wonder must have been pretty good. I’m looking forward to revisiting some of these locations in the coming year, discovering new destinations, and definitely putting it all to use in various tales.

Have you had experiences in any of the above places? What other spots have you explored in the last year, and where will the next one take you?

Making Hay

This Week’s Bit of String: Do the books make the town or does the town make the books?

Murder and Mayhem bookshop, with a hound painted on the front. — Check out this crime story bookshop!

The bus wound past hills dripping buttercups into golden meadow pools at their feet, and past chomping sheep, unabashedly sheeplike and not the least bit sheepish. I disembarked beneath the castle ruins in Hay-on-Wye. As I made my way through busy, merry little streets, I saw at least one bookshop on each.

I camped on the other side of the Wye, about a mile from the festival site, so for each event I crossed through town. Guitar players lounged outside cafes and pubs, the queue for the sheep’s milk ice cream parlour outlined the market square,

Stand offering notebooks with covers salvaged from old hardbacks and record albums. — Rebound Books. I’d take them all!

and a man with his inebriated accomplice tried to sell anti-religion t-shirts to a polite elderly couple. The local Big Issue seller wore a scuba diving suit in the rain, and sheep-shagging costume in the hot sun.

Houses on the Brecon Road to the festival got in on the game, hiring vending trucks or just selling packages of biscuits and copies of the Guardian. One stand offered wonderful notebooks made from vintage hardcovers. A church set up a facepainting marquee and chatted to visitors about their stories, sending them off with free books about faith. Another stand offered poems and prints thereof for sale.

Flowers in one of the festival courtyards — At the festival

The festival itself was a network of baize walkways and shining white marquees around courtyards of sun loungers and fairy lights.

With all this scenery to take in, I barely wrote a word during my weekend away. It’s tricky to balance time spent absorbing writing material while actually striving to write it down…or is that just me?

Books for Activists, Activists for Books

The first talk I attended was about finance. Partly to challenge myself, but mostly because Marcus Brigstocke co-hosted it. His frank, laid-back humour was evident as he interviewed a professor on the financial industry. David Pitt-Watson reminded us the financial sector uses our money, and we should make our wishes known to it. He suggests write to pension funds and other companies we may be invested in, to insist our money is in ethical causes, such as green energy.

The Poetry Bookshop — I bought The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah here from his former agent who knows him well.

Late that evening I came to Benjamin Zephaniah’s talk about his new autobiography. He exuded utter delight, dreadlocks swishing as he gifted us his rhymes. He says he created many of his poems out of anger, at racism and poverty. But he didn’t seem angry in the slightest. Maybe just for that night, because he was there at Hay with an enormous, rightly appreciative audience. Or maybe creating those poems helped dispel the anger somewhat while still adding fuel to his activism.

Hearing Voices

After a stormy night, I hiked various paths between England and Wales, coming to shelter from the downpour under a town centre marquee where a group of men sang sea shanties. Back at the festival in the afternoon, I got the most delicious smoothie of my life and attended an Ian McEwan interview. On getting story ideas, Mr. McEwan says, ‘I’ll hear an inner voice, and like the cadence of it, and want to find out who’s speaking.’

Dresses and flowers made of book pages and sheet music — A charity shop reflects the bookish theme with its page art.

I wonder if he ever finds the voices are giving a brief diatribe or vignette rather than a full story. That happens to me sometimes. Do I need to be more intrepid in tracking them?

Still, the incredibly successful novelist’s passion for finding out about characters was reflected, somewhat askew, in Jim Broadbent’s interview later. Intriguingly, the actor devised a plot for a graphic novel called Dull Margaret, based on a painting by Bruegel the Elder. This was recently brought to life by Dix, an illustrator for the Guardian. I was struck by Mr. Broadbent’s relaxed approach to story-writing, paraphrased here:

Big screen surrounded by cutouts of leaves and plants in an event marquee. — One of the busy festival venues

Audience member: So is the need for love, is that the message of the book?
Jim Broadbent: Message? Yes, I suppose it might be. It’s just the story, you know.
Another Audience member: Graphic novels are popular with young adults. Are they your target audience, or who is the ideal reader you had in mind?
Jim Broadbent: (Smiling) Well, me. I was ready to read it.

He was obviously very taken with his character, a mistreated woman who tries to get her own back. If only that passion for character were enough to get the rest of us published. Or are we just not quite sufficiently mad about ours?

Defining Poets

I went to Simon Armitage’s lecture on Bob Dylan’s Nobel for ‘creating new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.’ He assessed Dylan’s lyrics as less-than-spectacular poetry. But perhaps, he suggested,

Brick house on the Wye River — Would I get more writing done in this house, or would the river lure me constantly away?

Dylan’s ability to reinvent himself, his individual language and spontaneity, were a liberating influence. ‘The problem with sticking it to the man,’ Armitage remarked, ‘is that the more successful you become at it, the more you are the man.’

For the final evening in Hay I listened to a reading of WWI poet Wilfred Owen’s letters and work, stunningly presented by festival founder Peter Florence. I had no idea how raw and ahead-of-his time these were. And Owen underwent such a transformation. Initially he wrote to his mother that he didn’t wish to go to war, that he could serve the country better alive than dead, thanks to the spring of verse welling within. In the end he insisted he return to the front even after a head injury because the war made him a true poet.

Grand facade of the Richard Booth bookshop — Books from around the world! I bought a maths one to bring home to my son, about ancient counting systems and the concept of infinity.

It’s sad in a way, that he was right, that he is known as a ‘War Poet.’ But it was an incredibly important role. It makes me wonder what makes us artists. Is it our art’s substance (which largely is foisted upon us; the residue of past experience or that ‘inner voice’ appearing from nowhere) or the form we work to give it?

Look at Hay, though. A beautiful, hill-guarded town with lots of old streets intact and the Wye alongside it—yet it’s reinvented itself as a book and festival town, and that’s what brings most of us there. I seriously recommend it.