Authors: Joanne Clancy
She stared at the two of them in annoyance. “Well, I'm glad I've amused you both so much,” she huffed, which of course made their giggles even worse.
“What's his problem, do you think, love?” Niall eventually asked once he'd finally regained some composure.
“I think he's upset because the traditional way to get into The Abbey Repertory is via his acting school. He probably resents the fact that I've side-stepped him.”
“You can't blame him for being put out but I think he's directing his anger at the wrong person. It wasn't your fault if the head of the theatre offered you a job without consulting O' Keeffe,” Chantale interjected.
“Well, he's making my life a living hell and I truly don't know what to do about it,” Hope said in dejection.
“Why don't you join his acting classes?” Niall suggested.
Hope sat up a little straighter in her chair. “I'm a staff member of the company so I'm under no obligation to take his stupid classes.”
“It might be worth a try,” Chantale agreed with her son-in-law.
“Maybe,” Hope said reluctantly.
The next day, in an effort to propitiate O' Keeffe, Hope joined his classes. This proved to be a truly surreal experience. O' Keeffe's “lectures”, if that was what you could call them, included his love of climbing on the piano in the middle of the room and falling off it straight onto the floor.
“See?” he'd say, picking himself up, flapping his hands and repeatedly shrugging his shoulders as if they were little jackhammers. “It doesn't hurt a bit. Now you do it.”
Obediently, one by one, each student tried and every single time they fell on the hard floor, it hurt like hell!
“He had us dash headlong at a wall and attempt to run like spiders up its vertical surface!” Hope cried to her husband.
“Obviously that exercise was destined for failure,” Niall responded incredulously.
“You wouldn't mind but he makes us all feel utterly deficient, not only in skill but in our depth of passion,” Hope continued.
“It would be super human if you could walk up a wall,” Niall tried to console her.
“Take Christ off the cross!” Hope shrieked in imitation of her teacher. “That's his regular chant when one of us falls short of his ridiculous expectations in the delivery of our lines.”
“He sounds like a mad man!” Chantale pronounced.
“Well, I think you'd like him, mom. He believes in astrology. When I told him that I was a Libran he pursed his little mouth in derision and said “the Lord preserve me from a Libran woman!””
“Cheeky git,” Niall was not impressed.
Most disconcerting of all was O' Keeffe's demonstration of the correct way to play a love scene. Hope had struck up a friendship with Ellie May, one of the other acting students and she couldn't stop laughing at Hope's expression when, during that particular class, O' Keeffe chose Hope as the model on whom to demonstrate. He unceremoniously grabbed Hope by the shoulders, taking her completely by surprise.
“Get right in there between the knees,” he advised the class, and shaking her as if she a recalcitrant rabbit, he proceeded to show everyone just how tightly, far in-and up-between the knees a man should go with his own knee. Hope stood there utterly mortified, straddling his grotty trouser leg and trying to avert her eyes from the caked spittle in the corners of his mouth while he repeated the action a few times, tucking himself in more snugly.
“And now the kiss,” he announced. Suddenly, he stuck his tongue into her mouth.
According to Ellie May, Hope's face was “a picture.” Ellie May was obviously the queen of understatement.
Early morning was Kerry's favourite time of day, especially when she was writing. It was a perfect February morning and already the first signs of spring were in the air. She stood for a few moments by the French doors in the living room of Ballycotton House, high over the still waters of Kinsale Bay, one of the most beautiful places on earth.
It was eight o' clock on a morning that was completely perfect. Robins bobbed about on the patio outside, and beyond the tangle of brambles at the boundary of the house, a rabbit grazed on old, lazy beds that were covered in bright new grass. The little rabbit paused for a moment to scratch her ears and then sat upright to check for any signs of Sabre, Maura's German Shepherd, who often roamed between the two gardens.
East-southeast, a rim of sun appeared, simmering between two peaks of the far-distant mountains. Kerry sipped her second cup of strong coffee as the disc reddened and grew quickly, igniting a mesh of rubies and garnets on the surface of the bay and pinkening the blooms on the cherry blossom trees that lined the driveway.
She pushed open the doors and the air, chilly but exhilarating, hit the back of her throat like clean white wine. Somewhere to the left, bell-like through the bird twitter and chatter, echoed the call of the cuckoo. Kerry loved the sound of the cuckoo and knowing that, as usual, she would not manage to catch sight of the bird, nevertheless she stepped outside in the hope that she just might catch a glimpse. She peered around the garden but couldn't spot him, so she finished her coffee and shivered in the cold of the early morning.
Saoirse was staying at her friend's house and Conor was still fast asleep in bed. He loved the luxury of having a long lie-in at the weekend and he wouldn't be up for hours. Kerry relished the thought of having total peace and undisturbed quiet for at least a few hours. The deadline for completing her latest book was fast approaching and she was at the slightly panicky stage of tying everything together.
The launch date was still almost three months away, a few weeks after their holiday to Japan, but there was a lot of work left to finish before then. Kerry fired up her computer and settled down to read her emails. Although she was an established and well-respected writer she knew she was only as good as her last book and that thought often filled her with almost overwhelming panic. “What if my book bombs? I'll be publicly ridiculed and humiliated, a total failure,” she'd moan to Conor.
“Don't worry, darling, you won't fail, but if you do fail, fail gloriously,” were his slightly odd words of supposed comfort to her.
Kerry was a skilled storyteller and even her own daughters loved her books. The highest compliment she was every paid for her writing came for Saoirse. “It's as if your sentences come alive on the page, mom. Your stories are like a duvet which I can snuggle into.”
Kerry was lucky to have a wonderful editor who believed passionately in the value of her work. Nuala MacMillan was a straight-talking, willowy blonde who was tall and intimidatingly beautiful. They'd worked together from the beginning of Kerry's writing career, almost fifteen years ago and Kerry credited Nuala for much of her success. Nuala was not only a critic and guide, she was a huge advocate of Kerry's books within the publishing house. She constantly pushed for attention for her client's books, especially in the early days when Kerry was an unknown author struggling for her “breakthrough” novel. Nuala's skills as an editor were priceless. She never offered criticism along the lines of “this doesn't work, fix it” but instead made constructive suggestions as to how the book might be fixed.
Kerry opened one of Nuala's emails which she knew would be full of helpful ideas about cuts, changes, different emphases and balances. She scanned it quickly to get a feel for the general thrust. She looked on her books as being her babies. A small, secret part of her still begrudged them being vivisected and returned to her for reconstructive surgery. Experience and longevity did little to help her with her initial reaction. This was her book, her baby.
Kerry decided to make
another coffee and try to digest Nuala's thoughts before settling down for some solid editing. She realised that she and Nuala shared a common goal; to make the book as good as good as it could possibly be, so she started at page one, line one and, using her editor’s letter as a guide and springboard, began to rewrite her precious book, and found herself far exceeding the scale and particulars of her editor's suggestions. She realised with each page that Nuala's criticisms were spot-on.
Once each of Kerry's books finally left her desk and was in print, she refused to ever read them again, and except for enthusiastic co-operation with marketing and publicity departments, she left her books' fate up to others. Hindsight was simply too demoralising for her. She could not bear to find that, despite all the intensity and hard work, there were still aspects of her books that she could have written better, construction
s that could have been improved and pruning that should have been done when she had the chance. The opportunity had passed and redemption was often many months away. Writing books was very different to other forms of writing like journalism where, in the very next edition of their daily or weekly publication the journalist has a chance to show that they've learned from their mistakes.
Kerry's little assembly of books sat neatly on the bookshelf above her desk like a reproachful row of permanently discharged but not wholly cured hospital patients; at least they acted as a spur to improvement!
Kerry found it bemusing that some of her friend's saw her writer's existence as a whirligig of jet-setting and exotic parties, not to speak of high-level, arcane discussions with fellow artists. Nothing could be further from her experience. Like most other authors she knew, she spent a lot of time at home, conducting most of her life at and through her keyboard.
When the time came to attend book parties, give readings or participate in seminars, it was part of her job; far from a social whirligig, it was a blinking emergence from hibernation. Chats with her fellow writers were rarely arcane and when it touched on their profession at all, the context was usually what was going on with agents and publishers, which held true even when colleagues were friends too, although then, the confidences were the same as they were within any close relationship; family, friends, health, dreams and plans.
Actually, it was a wonder to Kerry, and a source of immense gratitude, that her friends stuck with her at all, since she so often turned down social invitations, bleating that she had to work. It wasn't a convenient excuse; for her, once she got into writing a book, it was like being on a train that never stopped. Yet, when she finally finished and could pull the communication cord, relief was tempered by a feeling of blandness. Each book for her had been somewhat of an albatross, pal and sumo opponent on board that train which finally, after months of being her constant companion, gets off too and leaves her to her own devices. She missed each and every one of her books when they were finally completed and set free.
Many people asked Kerry if she was very disciplined in her writing, which in her case the answer was that could be quite disciplined, especially when the cheeping of beetle-browed deadlines were getting louder. Unfortunately, however, Kerry was not one of those writers who could, seven days a week, sit down at her desk at exactly the same time every morning to work for a set number of hours. Her routine was messy. When there was no other call on her and those dreaded deadlines were within sight, she would work virtually around the clock, taking breaks only to eat and sleep. The rest of the time, although writing was a priority and was the main demand on her time most days, she often had domestic and family commitments. It was a juggling act, one that she had perfected over the years.
She was surprised to learn the many different methods of writing from her writing group of friends. Some writers start at the beginning of their book and write all the way through until they get to the end. Some write quick first drafts and then spend a lot of time rewriting and polishing. Some prepare very carefully in advance, writing outlines, plot summaries and detailed character biographies before even starting on the book proper.
Kerry's methods were instinctive and she never planned her books in detail. She usually started with one image, something she'd read, seen or heard in passing. The image would embed itself in her mind and wouldn't go away until she investigated it further. She especially found this to be the case in her recent foray into writing adult books, spe
cifically women's fiction and contemporary romance.
Writing for children was so much more straightforward than writing for adults, but she thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. It was a joy to escape outside her comfort zone and see how her books would be received
by the adult community. So far they had received some critical acclaim. The story of her last book had evolved in her head when she saw an elderly woman, erect as a statue and elegantly dressed in black, using a shopping trolley to run at cars in the middle of the motorway during rush hour! Her writer's creative mind had conjured up all sorts of scenarios. Who was that woman? What did she think she was doing and why? Where did she live? Who was her family?
Although there was always a semi-linear track through the finished narrative of her books, Kerry didn't write in a linear fashion. Initially, to her the plot development was like a tightly closed rosebud. The initial image was wrapped around it like an outer petal and what was contained inside was a secret to be slowly uncovered.
Sometimes, when she got to it, she found that the very centre of the bloom was not the centre of the story at all, and she had to set about rearranging the petals, pulling them apart, re-layering them, even adding more. Her system was like playing circular leapfrog; start with that single image or idea, write Chapter One, go on to Chapter Two, rewrite Chapter One, revise Chapter Two and go on to Chapter Three, rewrite Chapter Two, go back to revise Chapter One, and so on. By the time she finally reached Chapter Thirty, she'd have made extensive changes to every preceding one from between ten and fifty times.