Taroo, Tarot, Tarra...

 ONE of the novel’s secondary characters is Tante Ilse, a 91 year old neighbour of the Thomas family, who has known Madeleine since she first came to Munich. She likes to do Tarot spreads and one of these will feature in the novel. But what are Tarot cards and what are they for?

Tarot is a very ancient method for trying to read the future. The user lays cards from a pack of 78 cards with a variety of pictures on them and seeks to decipher answers for his / her question from the cards. This sounds very esoteric, but to find Tarot cards interesting and helpful, it is not necessary to believe that there is a mysterious power guiding the user in the card selection. The strength of the cards is that their meaning is open to interpretation and this can help people to reflect on their situation and view problems from a different angle. This change of perspective can often help the user make better decisions.

About four weeks ago while researching the topic, I decided to do a very simple spread about this project from a Tarot writer called Hajo Banzhof and I asked the question “What do I need to know about writing this novel and blog?”

I fixed the question in my mind and shuffled the cards. I then laid four cards face down on the table following the points of the compass:

1 West = represents the starting point for everything and the current situation.

2 East = represents things which are currently unimportant and can be ignored.

3 North = represents things which are currently important, the direction in which I should go, or what I should do.

4 South = represents the results in the near future if I follow the direction outlined in step 3.

I then turned over the cards, one after another, and this was my spread:

How do I interpret them?

1 West: The Page of Coins – this shows a man playing with what to me looks like a soap bubble. Banzhof’s interpretation is that I am considering the possibility of following an opportunity. I would add that the idea for this novel has been at the back of my mind for a long time as something vague and insubstantial. Now I want to take hold of it and turn it into something posiive.

2 East: The Five of Coins – this shows two beggars trudging thorough the snow and represents crisis or insecurity with problems that are not easy to solve. Normally quite alarming but in this case it means that this is something that I don’t have to worry about.

3 North: The World – a very positive card representing joy, happiness and thankfulness for what has been achieved. In this position it suggests I need to keep my eye on the goal and carry my project through. Sensible advice, you have to admit.

4 South: The Six of Coins – another positive card which suggests that if I persevere I shall be rewarded.

Yay!

It’s too soon to judge the accuracy or not of this reading, but there has been nothing so far to contradict its suggestions. You could argue that it’s all very generic good advice that could apply to any project. But I could have drawn a lot of other more negative cards, so I’m giving the Tarot the benefit of the doubt at the moment and feeling that, yes, this project is going to be a success, and the Tarot predicted it.

We shall have to come back to review this later. Don’t let me forget.

Stop press!

Venice, Grand Canal 

I'm jumping quite a long way ahead with the next chapter. This weekend I feel like curling up on the sofa and writing a nice death into the story which will be set (as tribute to Thomas Mann)  in Venice. So come back here on Sunday evening if you like the idea of a gruesome killing. 

It would also amuse me to show you the Tarot spread that I did for this novel. One of the characters will be a regular Tarot card user, so I've been investigating the subject (as a good novelist should), and I have to say the results were fairly impressive when applied to this project. Come back here Saturday and see what the future holds for our oeuvre!

Chapter 4 – Munich, June 2011

Chapter 4 has now been moved to 'Good Stuff' together with various improvements that people suggested. One change is that 'Ferdinand' has been changed into 'Maximilian'. A small change, but as somebody said to me, he's going to get beaten up at school if he's called Ferdinand, which I wouldn't wish on him.
On the other hand, my favourite Ferdinand didn't get beaten up at all. But that's fiction, sigh. Nevertheless, if you have children I thoroughly recommend this book for them.

Chapter 1

(Please note, a slightly revised Chapter 1 August 1995 is now stored under 'Good Stuff'. Come back here later today (January 13) for the next completed chapter.)

First of all – Happy New Year! I hope 2013 is everything you want it to be.

And what better way to kick off an excellent year than to read the long-awaited and much-delayed first chapter of my thriller?

If you’ve been following the development of the novel so far then there are one or two surprises which I’d better warn you about:

1) ‘Gottlob’ is no longer ‘Gottlob’. He’s ‘Franz’. Sorry about that. I wrote the whole first chapter with him as ‘Gottlob’ but increasingly had the feeling that it just looked wrong on the page. Then I read it aloud and got tired of saying it. ‘Franz’ is really 'Franz-Josef' in honour of the KuK emperor of Austria and King of Hungary of course, not the Bavarian premier. Above is a picture of his namesake.
 
2) As the first chapter is set in 1995, Madeleine is twenty-five, slightly younger than I originally planned. The bulk of the story will take place in 2011 which we should reach by chapter three.

3) 'Nick' has turned into 'Ned'. 'Ned' seemed slightly more suitable for a person who is going to get in as much trouble as 'Ned' is going to. I think a 'Nick' would have been much more careful.
I hope you enjoy the chapter and please send me feedback. In the middle of January I’ll transfer the chapter into Good Stuff and I hope by then I’ll have the next chapter ready for you to read.

Christmas? Humbug!

The great advantage of being English but living in Germany is that you have a one day advantage over the rest of the country when it comes to organising yourself, presents, food and everything else. So I can blog with a clean conscience on the 24 December. Christmas doesn't start until tomorrow and I can do a stock take on how things are going:

1) Timetable - not so good. I should be well into the chapters by now, but I'm just dabbling my toes in chapter 1.

2) Plot - good. I have a clear plan for what is going to happen. A plausible criminal background, attractive backclothes (Munich, London, Dubrovnik, Zagreb, Venice) and a great ending in mind.

3) Characters - the backstories (see Good Stuff) were a great help and I feel the characters are realistic and interestingly ambiguous. Ferdinand and Irmgard are still a bit sketchy, but I'm intrigued with the idea of Irmgard being a former test-pilot for the Luftwaffe.

4) Information about E-publishing - aaagh! Not good enough. Can anybody help here?

I will disappear now until January 1 2013 when I hope to have the first chapter ready for you. Many thanks for following this blog so far, and I hope you 'll stay with me next year. I need you!

A Post-It novel

Boris Karloff - Frankenstein

Somebody said to me the other day that they were surprised that I didn’t just sit down and write the story starting on page 1. This is a reasonable question, after all that’s how Jack Kerouac did it with On the Road but unfortunately I’m not Jack Kerouac.

To stop me feeling overwhelmed and confused by the scale of the story, I have decided to break the novel into bite size pieces. I have written all the key events onto Post-It notes and stuck them onto a wall in front of my desk. My plan is to decide which event I want to tackle first and then write that part. When that event’s finished I can look at the wall again and decide what to write next. The joy of this method is that if I have difficulties with one event I can just leave it and turn my attention to another one. There is a danger that the end result of this experiment could be something that looks like Frankenstein, a stitched together monstrosity, but I shall do my best to smooth over the seams and cover up the bolts.

Anyway, the picture below shows you my wall:

Apologies if it’s illegible, but I wouldn’t want you to know what I plan to write too much in advance, would I?

Well, that’s that. I’ve chosen my characters, I’ve tried out some of their voices in my back stories and I’ve got the plot. I really haven’t got any more excuses now. Better get to work. Just to be obvious, I think I shall start with the prologue. How about this?

It was a perfect day. The sun was bright but not too hot and a few clouds provided a tasteful amount of shade from time to time. The trains from central London arrived punctually and those who came by car found the normal traffic snarl around the church unusually restrained and could park without difficulty. The TV crews sent to report the event were overjoyed to find a cricket pitch in front of the doors to lend an air of English nostalgia to their filming.  In short, it was a perfect day for the Atkinson family to hold a funeral.

Colonel Ivan Kaiec

Apologies for the delay in a new post but I was doing some research into a likely background for the thriller and I also needed to try out the villain and see what he was like. If you’re interested, read about him in Short story nr. 3: Colonel Ivan Kaiec.
In this story, Timothy Arnold (who we met in Short story nr. 1: A Spy is Born) has an unpleasant encounter with a former business associate from the mid 90s.