charles barrow's writing

I'll always take a moment to stop and read a blue plaque, when I see one affixed to a house or building, to see who is being honoured, or remembered. Who once lived, or stayed, visited briefly, or otherwise bestowed their glorious presence upon said house or building. By definition, the plaques memorialise eminent people; the great and the good (but hopefully the slightly shady too), otherwise, what's the point? Who would care about a plaque dedicated to someone who achieved nothing of note? Maybe their close family would care, but the rest of us? Probably not. And what I would be curious to know is the minimum amount of time an eminent personage needs to remain in a building before that building can claim bragging rights and raise a plaque dedicated to that personage. The case of Charles Dickens is the reason I ask this question. I have spent years, all my adult life, living in various towns along the south coast of England, and almost all of them have had a blue plaque dedica...

I imagine I'm not alone in wincing at the sound of my own voice when I hear it on my answerphone message - thank heavens for the automated one that giffgaff supplies (though it's recently changed to a gruff sounding bloke with a Mancunian accent, which I imagine callers could conceivably believe is actually me). So, why the Dickens, would I consider recording myself reading extracts of my own writing, you may wonder, as, indeed, I wonder myself? Writers reading their own work to an audience is a time honoured tradition, of course, Dickens (since I've already invoked his name) famously toured all over the country, and America too for that matter, giving wildly popular live performances. I'm sure there are other examples too but he's the earliest example that I can think of. I've been to hear/watch a few authors read from their latest books; Matt Haig, Jake Arnott, A. N. Wilson, Cathy Rentzenbrink, Kate Mosse, Markus Zusak to mention just a few, and I've been ...

I just read Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens, for the first time. I thought I knew the story well; I've seen the film (the musical version) many times. I know, I know, the movies are never like the books, they are never as good, read the book. Well I did, and it surprised me. It's much longer and far more involved, plot wise, than I knew, and with many more characters. Oliver, Fagin, The Artful Dodger, Bill Sikes, and Nancy, are some of Dickens' best known characters, and probably some of the best known in any fiction, and I enjoyed spending more time with them (if you can enjoy spending time with thieves, child abusers and murderers). In fact, this story will linger for a long time. Dickens evokes Victorian London and its people better than anyone.

February is nearly done and dusted, and it's been a busy month for me. I have been doing a lot of editing, re-writing of At Day's End, Book 3 and I'm pleased with the way that's going but my self imposed deadline is looming and I'm getting a bit panicky under the collar. Is it possible to get panicky under the collar? If so, I am. But my February mind has also been full of other distractions, inspiring stuff that has been sparking my imagination; the song Human by Rag 'n' Bone Man for one. I was in a cafe with a friend and this began playing on a music show on the TV in the corner of the room and our conversation just stopped. We just stopped talking to listen. It's so rare that a piece of music, a voice can do that for me nowadays but this song had that ability. It's been playing on repeat at home ever since. Amazing. A book title caught my eye; The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. What a great title. I believe it's a crim...

Gah, I missed my Halloween deadline. Is it too late to post photos of pumpkins? Of course not. These aren't carved into ghoulish and gruesome faces but presented straight off the vine as beautiful as nature intended. Nothing says Halloween like a pumpkin unless you count Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and flesh eating zombies. I don't actually clebrate Halloween. Perhaps 'observe' is a better word than celebrate. It seems to have bumped Guy Fawkes Night right off the calender and I'd much rather watch fireworks lighting the sky than the neighbourhood youth causing havoc door to door. Also I'm not good with horror. Blowing up Parliament? Fine. Who hasn't thought of doing that? But evisceration, murder, black magic, hauntings? No thanks. The last horror film I sat through was probably Friday 13th, the original one, it scarred me for life and I've avoided any scary film since. I read ghost stories occassionally, Victorian ones, I can handle 19th century h...

Writing is hard. I knew that when I set out to tell John Mann's story just over two years ago (after an innocent and inauspicious beginning, recounted elsewhere on this blog), but writing it in the format that I have has made the job much harder than it needed to be I'm sure. I rather liked the idea of writing the story in serial form, it seemed more manageble that way, seemed like something I could commit to and stick with, and it never did Charles Dickens any harm I reasoned. Well, I have been committed and I have stuck but, damn, it's been difficult. I actually think I missed the whole point of serialising. I think I should have published a handful of chapters at a time, maybe on this blog, rather than in short story - verging on novella - format on Smashwords. For one thing it's made the gap between stories appearing much longer but it has also committed me to certain story strands and I hadn't forseen that consequence at all. For example, I create a charact...

The Hardy Tree can be found in the Old St. Pancras Churchyard in London. It is an Ash tree (Fraxinus Excelsior). It is named for the author Thomas Hardy. Before he gained fame as a novelist he worked as a trainee architect and the task fell to him, in 1865, to relocate the tombs and bodies in this churchyard because the expanding railways needed the land. He re-arranged the headstones around the ash tree as you see them in this photo. Old St. Pancras Churchyard also features in the Charles Dickens novel Tale of Two Cities, written in 1859. Photo is the author's own.

I spent a few hours in Portsmouth City yesterday. Charles Dickens was born there. I'd like to have visited the house where he was born, now a museum, but it was closed. There is also a fine statue of him but I didn't find it in my wanderings. Arther Conan Doyle also lived in Portsmouth for a while. He wrote his first Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet while he was living there. I did find the spot where he used to live but his house is gone and there is just a small purple plaque on the wall of the building that stands there now. So, I was breathing the same air that two literary giants breathed but I have no souvenirs to show for it, no better understanding of them as writers or people. I feel rather disappointed that I didn't try harder to track these great men down, I merely glanced at the Conan Doyle plaque and then moved on. I could have walked out of my way to find the Dickens statue, that wouldn't have put me out. But I didn't. An opportunity missed. ...