Auckland Independent Book Festival

http://www.eventfinder.co.nz/2014/auckland-independent-book-festival/auckland/Devonport


This is a great opportunity to check out books by New Zealand authors. I'll be there with some students from Wairoa College who will be working on a media project. It will be great for them because they'll get a chance to interview authors and small publishers.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_20/278-9873247-3996656?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=beneath%20the%20perfect%20world&sprefix=beneath+the+perfect+%2Cstripbooks%2C703&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Abeneath%20the%20perfect%20world

What makes love last forever? Meet the Incredibles.

When we read a book we all love a happily ever after. After the toil and strife which makes the plot exciting, the heroine gets married and becomes Mrs Charming. We can all laugh and joke about the after story. It's a bit like Mr and Mrs Incredible. They got married at the beginning of the story, so what happened next? Mrs Incredible got worn down looking after the kids, her bum got bigger; Mr Incredible got fed up of his job in insurance and went behind her back to find some excitement in life, secretly saving the world. So begins the marital crisis, but their marriage survived.

Interesting how the story ended. Just as they were about to go back to family life, after getting rid of Syndrome, the Underminer appeared. They had another mission to complete. So really, there wasn't a happy ever after. They moved to another stage in the journey, together. Their relationship was forged because they had something in common; being superheroes. Saving the world meant they did something together which reinforced a positive sense of identity.

For a period during their marriage, they weren't allowed to be superheroes. Mrs Incredible feared being sued so strictly prohibited her family from being superheroes. Mr Incredible lost himself so completely, he had to go behind her back to stop himself becoming depressed. She was frustrated too but at least she could use her superhuman powers in the home when she needed to keep the kids in line.

So what really kept this marriage from falling apart and how does it relate to the real world? Good relationships are forged on having things in common. Whether it's a hobby, similar belief or attitude, sharing this common ground reinforces a positive sense of identity. What's crucial to marital success is also that your individuality is also not questioned or challenged by your spouse. You and your partner can pursue individual interests, and when you reunite as a couple, you respect and show interest in what your other half has done.

Having a positive sense of self gives you a positive sense of being a couple when in a relationship. I've said before that love can be a destructive force which binds you in to a dysfunctional relationship. Inevitably, having your self-esteem battered should force you to leave. People do stay in relationships where their partner knocks them down constantly and sadly, low self-worth, a kind of bully-victim dynamic can work towards keeping two people together.

I'm looking at the positive relationship dynamic. Mrs Incredible had to make a sacrifice in order for her marriage to work. She had to accept her husband's need to be a superhero and renege on a judgement. By doing so, she rediscovered herself. Mr Incredible too had to compromise. Part of his positive sense of identity resided in his need to be the family protector. This, however, disempowered his wife. He had to learn that she needed a part in saving the world too.

The Incredibles scenario fits in with Social Identity Theories of relating. Each member of a couple has to have a role and have agency within that role. The whole Incredible family have different super human attributes. Any world saving endeavour that requires stretchy limbs is her department; anything that requires super strength is his. When put together, it is formidable. It's important though that he doesn't encroach on her stretchy limb territory and she doesn't try to be super strong. A meteor is heading for earth, that's for you honey. Oh, somebody's fallen off a multi-storey building. Reach out honey.

Respect, then, is the key ingredient to forging lasting love. Letting the other person have their expertise and admiring them for what they are good at is crucial if a relationship is to sustain longevity. Common ground is key and as much as doing things together can provide a solid foundation, respecting the other person's individuality is just as important.

http://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Perfect-World-Hannah-Graham/dp/1492850268/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402645724&sr=8-1&keywords=beneath+the+perfect+world

Why people cheat 2

You find someone irresistibly attractive and you can't help yourself. You don't even understand why.
Here's the answer.

http://www.upworthy.com/have-you-ever-wondered-what-makes-you-sexually-attracted-to-certain-people-here-are-some-answers?c=ufb1

Sexy man Richard Armitage

Looks wise, Richard Armitage fits the bill for Alan Bell. The blue eyes and dark hair, especially when it's a little unkempt. Alan always has a bit of stubble. He has the right voice too. Slightly northern baritone. Alan's accent has toned down since going to uni.

Alan is meant to be a good looking bloke with a fit body. I can remember going to the gym and Robin Hood was on the TV monitor. It was the episode where Guy of Gisborne took his shirt off. No need for interval sets, my heart rate went up 10bpm.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beneath-Perfect-World-Hannah-Graham-ebook/dp/B00FVXF0YM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402469925&sr=1-1&keywords=beneath+the+perfect+world

Why do people cheat?

I've had a few interesting responses to my post, 'Is it okay to cheat on your spouse or partner'. The general consensus is 'Why would you cheat', and 'Leave your partner first'. It is the right thing to do but it is also an ideal world scenario. Infidelity is a clear sign there is something wrong in a relationship. Not all couples have the equanimity required to talk through and resolve issues in a level headed way. Poor communication is the biggy when it comes to breakdowns. When I was writing 'Beneath the Perfect World' my editor said there is an imbalance of power in most relationships. The emotions which bind us into relationships are not always a good thing. Love is not a good thing if it locks you into a dysfunctional relationship. Such emotional ties are founded by childhood relationships. My editor reckons if there is a bully and a victim in a room full of people, they'll find each other. Still, if your partner treats you badly, get out. That's a tough call if he or she has battered your self esteem into the ground. Perhaps if you haven't got the strength to leave your other half, you haven't the strength to resist an affair.

Adultery is still the biggy though when it comes to breaking marriage vows, but actually, now I think about it, it wasn't in my marriage vows. No, I said, 'I promise to care for you, to give you my love and friendship and to respect you and cherish you throughout the rest of our lives together.' Being faithful is just a given. Historically, it was punishable by law and in some countries still is. It is enshrined in religious doctrine, hence it's enmeshed in cultural belief systems.

If there is so much cultural, social and religious opposition to adultery, why do people do it? A sex worker I knew said her male clients didn't only come to her for sex. Sometimes they would see her and not have sex. They'd just talk to her. As much as they loved their wives, they found themselves unable to connect with her, have an understanding with her. Why did they marry her?

People change. As you grow older, you move away from being the socialite you were in your youth and look for other ways to find fulfilment. You have new interests and perhaps the person you married when you were in your early twenties doesn't change in the same way.

There's also enormous social pressure to stay with your spouse or partner. I heard one unhappily married man say he wouldn't leave his wife because his parents would disown him! Really? Can the will of parents determine whether or not someone remains in an unhappy situation.

I said before we're pretty naughty as a species. We carry fears of reproach set by the discipline regimes imposed by our parents into adulthood. This dynamic can also work in a marital relationship. Adultery can unleash the rebellious child our parents try to control. It can be a means of defying the controlling parent, like the first time you broke a curfew, or smoked a cigarette. It's unnerving to think this dynamic works in a relationship between two adults.

Perhaps the long and the short of it is, some people need to grow up

Is it okay to cheat on your spouse or partner?

I'm moving away from the main ideas in 'Beneath the Perfect World', but still sticking to one of the big themes: morally questionable behaviour. The protagonist, Alan Bell, certainly pushes the boundaries of respectable norms and I had a difficult job vindicating him in the eyes of the reader. I've started writing the prequel and I'm wondering if I should turn him into a love cheat. How hard will it be to convince my reader, he is a good character if I make him sleep with another woman behind his partner's back.

If you look at statistics, http://www.statisticbrain.com/infidelity-statistics/ more than 50% of men and woman cheat at some stage in a relationship. Most of the time it's a cat's away scenario so they don't get caught. This suggests few people want their marriage to break up, although most marriages do not survive. Many more people would like to have an affair but don't want to risk being caught.

On the whole, we're a pretty naughty species and cheaters have a bad name. They are bitches, bastards, scumbags, arseholes. Their spouse or partner is the most wronged person in society, but for someone to cheat, surely a lot of wrongs come first.

Stereotypically, the motives for cheating differ between the sexes. The man gets labelled a player and the woman gets labelled a floosy. It's easy to demonise the cheater as a callous person who is being damn right nasty to their other half, but it's not that simple. Cheating falls into the categories of physical gratification and emotional gratification. Although I'd have more sympathy for the latter motivation, both indicate needs are not being met in the 'legitimate' relationship.

In simple layman's terms, a spouse or partner can feel wronged when cheated on because their status with another person as spouse or partner has been proclaimed. This means they have exclusive rights to that person. The marriage certificate affirms this. Once you've made the marriage vows, you're in for the duration. Divorce happens if a marriage breaks down, but if it's on the grounds of adultery, the person who cheated is to blame.

It's a chicken and egg situation. I heard recently someone say that if you are intending to cheat, you should leave your partner or spouse first. Is life really that simple? Adultery is a complicated scenario. First of all you fancy someone who isn't your partner or spouse. The lust kicks in, an emotional connection is developed, you find yourself drawn to that person. You know it's wrong but you can't help it. Why? Because the stuff going on is incredibly powerful. Before you know it, you drawn in and as much as you fight it, the urge is too hard to resist.

A friend of mine once scolded someone for sleeping with a married man. 'What about his wife; she loves him?' So does that mean if you love someone you have rights over them? She might have loved her husband, but she wasn't meeting his needs in their relationship. He might have done the one big thing that met with a furore, but what about all the little things that were going wrong in the relationship that were making him unhappy?

In the vast majority of cases, people commit adultery because they are not happy. I love you is the justification that two people should remain together, but love is a strange emotional tie. It may bind people for a couple of years and cause people who are constantly at each other's throats to stay together, but when the flame dies, it's time to get real and get out. That is also a hard step, because it's hard to disestablish the things two people have built together after a number of years. People simply put up with the crap because getting out is harder.

So instead, people cheat. And perhaps people cheat because it is the one thing that will break up the unhappy home.

If you've read 'Beneath the Perfect World' you'll know beneath it all Alan is a caring person, who's life has been messed up by circumstances. Those who want to get their claws into him can do so because of his tendency to self-abnegate and want to do right by everyone. So if I decide to make him a love cheat in the next book, don't be hard on him.

More on sex scenes and why they are the opposite of 'Fifty Shades of Grey'.

There seems to be a rubric for writing sex in novels. I remember an obituary for Barbara Cartland. It said her heroines didn't have sex until the end of the novel - the glorious union, on her wedding night. I'm sorry but when has losing your first sexual experience been a glorious union? Two hapless virgins fumbling about like they're working out what the buttons do on a new toy. Men need to sow their oats a bit and read a few books, get some practice in before settling down to monogamy. And Alan isn't exactly Casanova. His lack of sexual prowess and experience is something my editor baulked at.

When I got my first sex scene back from the editor I wanted to puke. It came back full of slush, the two become one scenario, Alan filling her with his body and loving. The couple are pretty disconnected. He's rusty to say the least and is more shocked and bewildered by the invitation than about to become the next Casanova.

A lot of people say they like my book because the characters are real. I sacrifice the archetypical hero for realism, so the sex is also real. Not gimmicky, and there to give the reader a bit of sensationalism. It's there to reveal very human characters, who have their flaws, and crack up when under too much pressure.

Sex is something my characters have to work at. It's very lust driven but that doesn't mean it hits the spot every time. Over time they get better at it and learn how to become connected. A strong personal connection doesn't necessarily result in it being manifest in the physical side of the relationship. My characters move towards this as part of their journey.

Beneath the Perfect World: The cover - more than Fifty Shades of Grey

Beneath the Perfect World: The cover - more than Fifty Shades of Grey: Take a look at the cover of 'Beneath the Perfect World' and you'll see a nothing but shades of grey. The shot was taken by Micha...

The cover - more than Fifty Shades of Grey

Take a look at the cover of 'Beneath the Perfect World' and you'll see a nothing but shades of grey. The shot was taken by Michael Horsfield, a friend of mine and amateur photographer. I took an interest in his photography after he posted some of his pictures on Facebook, many of them taken whilst out cycling in the Dales. I had a look through his Flickr page. The obvious connection between the location and protagonist made this the likely place to find a suitable cover photograph. I thought the black and white shot captured the bleakness of the protagonist's situation and also the shadow hanging over him.

The image depicts the opening scene of the book. Susanna North suggested superimposed the bike, although I would have been happy just to use the original photograph. I was told the bike would arouse a bit of curiosity in the reader. Why the hell is that there? You find out in the first chapter. The cover picture is Fleet Moss, about fifteen miles from where the fictional location of Clayton is meant to be. It's the middle of nowhere, the nearest major town being Skipton, which isn't that big, and the nearest city being Bradford, some thirty miles away.

So, the more than fifty shades on the cover represent the sinister edge to life in a seemingly gentile village. No bondage gear allowed there. At least if you had it, you would have to be ultra discrete because the locals like to gossip and it's very difficult to keep your life private. Alan doesn't have to anything too outrageous to rock their world. Where the police don't intervene, a deputation of neighbours will.

The inspiration for the community came when I was living in Bradford. I lived in the Urban village of Heaton, in the centre of Bradford opposite the local church. The residents of Clayton were based on the church community. In 2001, the vicar decided to put a mobile phone mast in the spire. The jury was still out at that stage as to whether or not these things were safe and the local community opposed it. What struck me was the outrage the church community showed when the local residents challenged the vicar. It was like, how dare you challenge a man of the cloth. Most surprising was being told no one had ever challenged the vicar before or spoken to him in the way we did. Eh? We were a group of educated, sensible people voicing a concern. We were far from the riotous militants we were made out to be. Yet the slightest dissention caused uproar within the church.

We staged a few peaceful protests outside the church during Sunday worship hours. Mortified by our antics, one of the congregation came out of church with a camera announcing, 'I'm going to take a photograph of this!' What was he going to do, show the world this bunch of infidels? The vicar saw sense and didn't publish it in the church magazines.

They got their mast in the end. I felt as though the thirty or so people who attended the church thought they were the whole world. So I stuck them in the middle of nowhere, where their self-importance could reign, and wrote about them. My protagonist is the rest of us rolled into one. He can't fight them; he just has to go elsewhere.

Sex scenes - by no means Fifty Shades of Grey

When I started writing 'Beneath the Perfect World' I was in a bit of a quandary about how much sex I should put in it. How explicit should I make it? The advice on the net was don't overload it. Making a book too erotic limits your target audience. You might be decimating your potential readership. No sex pleases everybody, and a bit of sex won't offend too many, but loads of sex might put people off. Then 'Fifty Shades of Grey' came out. For everyone of the 100 million who bought fifty-shades, think of how many would have bought it had it contained no sex. I can see that's a bit flawed, really.

In the end, I didn't conform to any rubric when I put the sex in. The reader needed to know that the characters had a sexual relationship, and how far it enhanced the emotional bond between them, but there is this thing called too much information. Sex in my novel goes beyond the physical act. It impinges strongly on the psyche of my main character, but probably not far enough for the novel to be a psycho-sexual thriller. It does form part of the psychological elements.

My protagonist is by no means a Christian Grey; in fact he's the opposite. He's self-abnegating when it comes to sex, if not baffled when his partner's response indicates he has some sexual prowess. He doesn't know his ability to satisfy a woman and watches, kind of metaphorically scratching his head while she wanders of into the realm of the orgasm.

There is a detachment between them. He ponders over her gratification while she appears to be somewhere else. There is a disunity between the two characters during sexual engagement, which is more orientated towards achieving a goal rather than sharing a journey.

It confirms, however, that the relationship between the two is based on a genuine bond of affection rather than lust.

Why I would chose Matthew McFadyen to play Alan in 'Beneath the Perfect World' movie.

I don't know whether this happens to all novelist, but when I was dreaming up 'Beneath the Perfect World' I had this idea that one day it might become a movie. Alan's character came about after watching Matthew McFadyen's portrayal of Paul Prior in 'In My Father's Den.' Matthew is my eye candy, made all the more sexy by playing a flawed character who you can sympathise with. His whole demeanour in the film was one I wanted to replicate in Alan. Humbled but self-assured, troubled but stoic but will crack under extreme pressure. My editor called Alan a wimp at one stage in the novel because he breaks when things get really tough. Perhaps she expected him to be a romantic hero, but that doesn't make him real.

Even down to the scruffy clothing, Matthew's ability to look good in them makes him the perfect Alan. He's a big bloke, too, and the snagged jumps make him seem so cosy to snuggle up to. He'd have to tone up a bit to suit the role of a fit bloke into mountain biking. If Tom Hanks can do it so can Matthew. I'm not sure whether Matthew would suit black shaggy locks, but it's not imperative he has them. The way he carries himself makes for a more accurate portrayal of my protagonist. And of course, the most obvious reason, he's simply gorgeous.

Faking yourself

How often do you fake yourself? The job interview or any scenario which requires you to fit someone else's mould. It's the same with writing. The book has to meet a certain criteria before it will be accepted for publication. That can be anything from the way it's written to how the characters are presented, to the storyline. My protagonist, Alan, had to be changed to fit the criteria of a hero. I had to make him bolder in some scenarios where I'd made him falter, yet I still had to make him believable and real. Sometimes, when the book was returned from editing, there'd be comments in the margin saying, 'What a wimp!' I couldn't make Alan completely flawless. He goes under a lot of strain in the book. It would be unrealistic for him not to crack up. Without giving the ending away, when I first submitted the plot for appraisal, I was told the ending was too sad. I had to change it to satisfy the reader. Then again, one of the lessons I learned while writing is that you are not writing to please yourself, you are writing to entertain an audience.

I was mentored while writing 'Beneath the Perfect World' and I ended up writing to a formula. Don't get me wrong, the end product was a hell of a lot better than it would have been had I kept to my own writing style. I experimented with metaphors, thinking to gain respectability I had to be Thomas Hardy. It came out far too contrived and then a critique pointed out, Hardy wouldn't be published if he submitted his work today. One thing my editor told me was that I need to let my own voice come through more. I would have thought after all the scrutiny the book went through, I would have got it right by now. Like many pop bands, the second album is usually better than the first. Not always the case, but it's more polished, the band fuse better. The songs are more catchy. The third album just about sustains it then the band reinvent themselves.

True with writing. You perfect your style when you write the first book then polish it for the second. Pressure to meet a deadline for a publisher can mean subsequent books are not as well crafted as early novels. What the hell, the writer has earned an international reputation.

My next book will be more how I want it to be. Not that I've earned an international reputation. I want the protagonist to be flawed and work hard to win the respect of the reader. He's going to do some dodgy things but I think this will make him more interesting. There won't be a happy ending, but that doesn't mean the reader isn't satisfied. This is the prequel, though, to 'Beneath the Perfect World'.

Michael Gove

What else can you do other than just  put your head in your hands when you hear Goves latest educational policy. Banning American literature from the English Literature syllabus? What the hell! Does he think writers from other nations can't write and have nothing to offer in terms of cultural enrichment. He may be thinking by forcing young people to read Victorian literature he might be injecting these feckless youths with a bit of moral fiber. Umm, yeah. Pick pockets, armed robbers, drunkards, unmarried mothers, murderers and a bit of antisemitism thrown in for good measure. Makes George shooting Lenny in the back of the head a bit lame. Okay, 'Of Mice and Men' does have a brothel, oh yeah, and Curlly's yellow jackets. That might be going a bit too far. All literature has a place and will always be critiqued from the social-political viewpoint of the reader. Reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is not going to turn everyone communist. 

As an English person writing in New Zealand, where does that leave me? Thankfully, I didn't write my book for a GCSE syllabus, but neither did Hardy, Dickens, Elliot, Steinbeck, Miller or Harper Lee. They were chosen for their artistic merit and the salient messages about the society they lived in. Writing in New Zealand, I've met some brilliant writers who struggle to gain recognition simply because of where they are based. If I go back to England to write my next novel, does that make me a better writer?

In the 80s, when I was at school, we were fed Victorian Literature and Shakespeare, to the point where I was led to believe nothing else had any value. When I started writing, I thought I had to be like them to be any good. When the first draft of 'Beneath the Perfect World' was critiqued, I was told Thomas Hardy wouldn't get published if he was writing today. So why does Gove want us to teach young people this is good writing? By modern standards, it's verbose, contains too many elaborate descriptions and relies too much on exposition. Modern writing is driven by the character and the landscape is an integral part of the protagonist.

I enjoy Victorian literature but after writing my own novel, and learning the craft of writing, I thought Hardy was hard work. My editor would have cut out the verbiage and cut the word count down by half, without reducing the story content. There's plenty of modern writers who explore the human condition just as well as Hardy and Dickens; but please Mr Gove, allow our young people to read something they can relate to.

Silent Characters

I've always been intrigued by the role of silent characters in novels. That's why I decided to put one in my novel, in the form of Alan Bell's former girlfriend, Louise. She appears again in silent form in the prequel to 'Beneath the Perfect World' which I'm currently writing. Although you hardly see them in their own right, they strongly influence the main plot; they mainly appear in the flashbacks, memories or thoughts of the main characters. They are like an omnipotent force driving the story line. Eva Smith in 'An Inspector Calls' changes the whole political outlook of the younger characters in the play. Fanny Robin in 'Far From the Madding Crowd' does more harm dead,despite being pathetic when she's alive. She determines the fate of Bathsheba and Francis Troy. She has the trait of someone who will inherit the earth. She's meek. Hardy's religious statements are embedded in her role and it's interesting how, rather than damn a sinner, like he does in his other novels, he gives her power in the afterlife. In all three texts, the silent character is dead. Each one testifies to the old saying, 'You can't fight a ghost.'