Autumn Ghosts

The Autumn evenings are drawing in and my thoughts turn inevitably to ghosts. Several places on Portland lend themselves to ghost stories. The Verne at the highest point of Portland deserves a legion of Roman soldiers tramping down the steep incline. There should be a headless horseman lurking somewhere near the windmills. And a group of lost Edwardian ladies with umbrellas walking around Wakeham in the rain.

I'm not sure why I am fascinated by ghosts. Perhaps something to do with watching a lot of Scooby-Doo shows in the early 1970s.

Venus, Ghosts and Frankenstein

We went to see the Venus Verticordia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti at the Russell Cotes art gallery in Bournemouth today http://russell-cotes.bournemouth.gov.uk. Amazing colours. The twins liked the Victorian decor of the house and the cafe. We found ghosts in the churchyard at St Peter's Church, and saw the grave of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. Nearby we also saw Domini's Frankenlion! (http://www.prideinbournemouth.com/lions.php) Now I am looking over the typeset manuscript of Portland Pirates, in its final stages, with a sword and pirates hat by Domini inset as chapter breaks.

Looking for Ancestors

Last week I went to the parish of St Feock in Cornwall to look at a church built by my ancestor William Gerrish, a stonemason born in 1800. The church is set deep in the Cornish countryside, in an area where a lot of my forebears lived, including Penroses as well as the Gerrish family. The only recorded twins in my family tree (until Jade and Jasmine) were William's sons, so I feel a sense of connection to his family. The Saxon church tower set apart from the church building seems oddly familiar too.

Final changes to Pirates

Made some drastic changes to the manuscript of Portland Pirates early yesterday morning and sent to Roving Press. I have changed the names of 3 main characters. The Pirates has quite a number of characters, including a pirate crew, Cap'n Red Pete, a cabin boy, not to mention a smuggler and the usual array of present day characters; Isabel, her naughty sister Suzie and Gregor the badly behaved dog from Groves Farm.

I am often asked if my characters are based on real people. Some characters are inspired more or less by people I have met, even briefly. Sometimes just a chance comment will also inspire a scene or help to rewrite an aspect of the plot. Not long ago I was talking to Wendy, who designs and creates peg dolls, and she described seeing an unusual cloud formation over Portland. The cloud was shaped like a dragon. Portland always seems to produce dragons. But it started me thinking about my time-travelling pirate ship and how the ship itself could appear in the clouds. It helped with a few plot difficulties, so thanks Wendy!

Radio Solent

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/bdb. I enjoyed talking to Harry Crawford at the Big Dorset Brunch. Nice that he compared The Portland Chronicles to works by CS Lewis, Tolkien and JK Rowling!! But I guess its very true that youngsters like to read about fantasy, myth and legend. Even more so if the legends are drawn from a place they know well, or can visit. We discussed my pirate research and I mentioned Henry Strangways who hid his pirate loot at Portland Castle. I suppose the humour in some of my characters makes the Chronicles a little different. We also talked about how important young readers are at this stage of editing Portland Pirates. Their views are very important.

The Real Portland Sea Dragon

A skull belonging to one of the largest sea monsters ever found has recently gone on show at Dorset County Museum in Dorchester. The pliosaur lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and was a terrifyingly huge creature, like an enormous crocodile. Scientist can estimate from the size of the skull that the creature would have been 15 to 18 metres long. The skull was found near Weymouth, Dorset, a few years ago.

Palaeontologist Richard Forrest said of the skull: "This is an iconic specimen - one of the most exciting we have seen in years. It was probably the most fearsome predator that ever lived. Standing in front of the skull you can imagine this enormous beast staring straight back at you, fixing you with its binocular vision, and attacking. Just thinking about it raises the hairs on the back of your neck."

I have been following this story with great interest - my story The Portland Sea Dragon was inspired by a local legend, the Chesil Beach sea monster (the Veasta, as it is often called), and also by the real archaeological evidence of the pliosaur found nearby. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14061347

Unicorns and Elidor

Writing about a unicorn this morning for Book 4 of The Portland Chronicles, The Island Giant, I have been thinking a great deal about Alan Garner and Elidor. I was very influenced by his stories, which I started reading when I was about 7 years old. I believe Elidor was published in the year that I was born, 1965. I loved the way that a fantasy world was juxtaposed against the real gritty life of a Northern city, and it felt very real to me. I remember the experience of being underground in the tunnels of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, as if I had been really there. For me, these stories marked a transition in reading, where I started to live in the world inhabited by characters and identified closely with them. The novel was a journey I took with these characters, turning the pages not just to find out what happened next, but also to stay in that world with them.