What I did when I should have been editing

Posted on November 18, 2017 by Mary276

October was a very busy month. Ages ago I agreed to run a course on vascular endothelium (the innermost lining of all blood vessels) for the Sutherland Cranial College of Osteopathy. One of osteopathy’s founding principles is that ‘the rule of the artery is supreme’ and this is an update on what that means. I’ve taught on this topic before but it is a hot topic for medical research so I knew I needed to update my work. I also needed to expand it to fill the day. All went well but it did keep me fully occupied. Then, thanks to a chance remark I made on Twitter, I was asked to write about the endothelium and consciousness for a philosophy blog. My post was published 13 November and is titled “Hearts and Minds: The Mystery of Consciousness”. A couple more distractions ensued and now, finally, I can get on with the edit. Yay! I’ve been hard at it all day today and have set myself a deadline of the end of November. Which is quite soon. But I have so many other projects in the pipeline that I just have to get on with it and, anyway, we will at last be able to set a publication date when this draft is completed. And now I have to change into ’70s gear for a party. Where are those silver boots and blue eye shadow?

Editing for Novices

Posted on September 29, 2017 by Mary276

So the edit came back and I must say it is impressive. I haven’t completely absorbed it all yet but mostly I think the changes made improve the book and will make it clearer and easier to follow. There are one or two cuts that I can’t agree with but I assume that’s normal. I don’t actually know how best to go through the document and rework it, but one of my fellow authors at Unbound, James Ellis, who is also a professional editor, has offered to help. Meanwhile I am totally chuffed with the editor’s opening paragraph – I pretty much stopped reading when I got to the end of it, thinking “it’s not going to get any better than this!”:

“Your memoir has a great (and commercial) premise, and I really enjoyed reliving your father’s earlier life experiences and learning more about this fascinating period in WWII history. He was a stoic, level-headed and resourceful personality who lived a fuller life than most, but chose not to shout about his achievements. WWII is of perennial interest as a genre and Princess Anne’s Foreword helps to give this gravitas. Your writing is polished, your descriptions are vivid, your questions are intelligent and you’ve clearly done a lot of research”.

I am away on an osteopathy course this weekend and I have a course that I am teaching in early November which I need to finalise my preparations for, so I am going to have to squeeze editing in around the edges. Oops – I just read James’ top ten dos and dont’s – number one don’t is to blog about writing when you should be writing!

Stranger

Posted on September 10, 2017 by Mary276

Originally this blog was intended to keep friends and family up to date with my travels in China. It worked far better than sending postcards and it was great to be able to share photographs and videos of my adventures. Now, though, I am going to start blogging about my publishing journey. The book is written but that seems to be a relatively small and simple part of the process – a journey from ‘twinkle in the eye’ to embryological development. I now have to get through the gestation process.

I am anxiously awaiting the return of the manuscript of “Stranger In My Heart” from the editor. I was expecting it last week but nothing has turned up yet. This is like the 12 week scan, when I shall see if there is a healthy heartbeat and the right number of limbs. After that I will have to do a lot of work. Everyone says that you have to ‘kill your darlings’ – allow cuts and changes even to your favourite passages – in order for the book to work well. I will try not to be too defensive but I hope that there isn’t a total rewrite to do as I am rather busy doing other things. I am also looking for people who might write reviews for me. I have contacted some celebrity supporters of the Riding for the Disabled Association (I’m donating some of the book proceeds to the RDA) and I have a well known author or two up my sleeve, but any suggestions gratefully received.

I am going to the Greek Islands in a couple of days for a holiday – it has been a tough year for me, healthwise, and I am hoping to come home with renewed vigour. I may or may not post while I’m away, depending on WiFi availability, inclination and newsworthy news!

Privates on Parade

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Mary276

I’m back home. I flew from Shangri-La to Kunming to Hong Kong to London, about 30 hours travelling all told. The only incident en route was that we were slightly delayed on the way to Shangri-La airport by a yak crossing the six lane highway just in front of us. Admittedly it was using the zebra crossing, so I suppose it was fair enough. Julian and Gobi were overjoyed to see me and it is lovely to come home to spring in full bloom.

One last comment on China – the public conveniences. For a nation that is fastidiously clean and well organised, the toilets seem to be a bit of a blind spot. Neither privacy nor hygiene seem to be a factor in their design. At the 3 star end we have western style sit toilets, with doors on the cubicles. If these toilets exist at all, it is in the guise of “disabled access”. For full 3 star rating there also needs to be toilet paper (rare as hens teeth), water in the basins, soap (also very rare) and something to dry your hands with (not a big deal in a warm country mind you). Most common is the 1 or 2 star toilet where some of these things are missing. Doors being the most commonly absent feature. The cubicles are usually in a row over a trench, where water runs through periodically to carry away the waste into a collective hole in the ground. Squatting is mandatory. Used paper is put into a basket in the cubicle – I’m not against this in principle, if the baskets are emptied frequently. What I do find disturbing is that the cubicles are separated by a wall – no door – and so you have to squat more or less in public. My least favourite is where the wall is only about 2 feet high, so that when you stand up to pull your knickers up, your privates are on parade, as it were.

Down from the positive star rated loos we have the minus 1 or 2 star toilets, where you would be infinitely better off behind a bush – or in front of a bush, come to that. My guides helpfully steered me away from these horrors. My first treat on arrival at LHR was to use a lovely western loo, behind a locked door, with hot water and soap to wash my hands and a functioning hand dryer. I love China, I think it is an amazing country, but it does have this one little niggly disappointment. I’ve always found everything about China paradoxical, and this is just another example. Nobody’s perfect.

Shangri-La

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Mary276

This morning we went to Potatso National Park. In some ways this is a good time of year to visit – the cold winter is over and the rainy season hasn’t started. However, the land looks very barren and dull as the grass has not yet started to grow. This park is supposed to be home to a great variety of fauna and flora, but the rhododendrons aren’t in bloom, I can’t imagine orchids surviving the grazing by yaks and horses and we only saw a couple of ducks on the lake. The alpine meadow must look lovely in the height of summer, but currently it is a desert.

Poor Shangri-La, being lumbered with that name – even though they fought for it – it sets expectations that cannot possibly be met. The climate and altitude are not conducive to pretty trees and flowers and the fire has ruined the charm of the old town.

This afternoon we visited the Songzanlin Tibetan Buddhist monastery, the largest in Yunnan and established by the 5th Dalai Lama in 1679. It was desecrated during the Cultural Revolution but was rebuilt and repopulated in the 1980s. It is an impressive site, with golden rooves and intricately decorated interiors, with massive statues of the Buddha and other deities. Sadly, though, it feels spiritually hollow and inauthentic. It seems designed mainly for tourists, though apparently 450 monks are in residence. One sign said “respect ethnic cultures and beliefs”. Quite. I’m sad that this is the final attraction on my trip – it would have been good to end on a more positive note. Still, overall it’s been a great trip and I have very much enjoyed visiting Yunnan.

Paradise on Earth

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Mary276

I had a little wander round the old town of Shangri-La. Sadly, the fire in January 2014 destroyed almost all of the old wooden buildings. They are doing their best to rebuild in the traditional style but it’s going to take a while. Meanwhile, health and safety are paramount for the workers. Paradise on Earth it is not.

My little hotel is Tibetan in style – architecture, food, staff. Delightful.

My room is the 3rd door along

On the road to Shangri-La

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Mary276

Today we headed north towards the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. First stop was the ‘first bend of the Yangtze River’. Three rivers rise in the north and head south through the mountains. Two of them continue south and join the Mekong, emptying in the South China Sea. The Yangtze makes a different choice – at this spot it makes a U-bend that then leads it eastward across China, ultimately reaching the sea at Shanghai. At this season, before the rains, the river looks charming and benign, but in a month or two it will be an iron-red raging torrent. We strolled through the little town next to the bend and snacked on deep fried potatoes with chilli.

We continued on to Tiger Leaping Gorge (still the upper Yangtze, here known as Jinsha river). I had toyed with the idea of hiking the gorge for a couple of days but all the guidebooks say it is extremely steep and demanding, especially on the knees. Not for me these days. Instead we drove to the inevitable visitor centre, with walkways, viewing platforms and tat shops. Even so it was a considerable descent to reach the river and a stiff climb back up. No matter all the trappings of tourism, it is still stunning. Hydro power is growing massively in China and there was talk of flooding the gorge to create a dam. As well as affecting tourism, this would have displaced about 100,000 Naxi people. In a rare response to public outcry, the dam project has been shelved. However, there are still plans for dams higher up and lower down, so it is not all good news.

We climbed from 2400m at Lijiang to 3200m at Shangri-La, via spectacular mountain scenery. We are close to Tibet here and the flavour of the town is very much Tibetan rather than Chinese. Goats gave way to yaks, pagoda style roofs disappeared and traditional Tibetan houses started to appear, signs started to be in Tibetan script as well as Chinese characters and prayer flags were flying everywhere. It’s also much colder here, but still good weather. There was a major fire in Shangri-La last year that destroyed about 400 houses in the old town. I’m not sure how much that will affect the look of the place.

Small Miracle

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Mary276

This evening a small miracle occurred. My guide recommended me to go to a Tibetan restaurant called Lamu’s. I can now navigate the maze of alleys in Lijiang old town well enough to find my way there (and back!). The restaurant turned out to be the best and most user-friendly place in town. Or province, come to that. I ordered cheese balls and fried “noddles” with chicken and…a….glass…of….red…wine!!! No really, it’s true. A restaurant in China that sells wine, by the glass. Miracle! And it had a charming view of cherry trees in blossom and a distant pagoda. Bliss.

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Mary276

I grabbed a quick shot of the ancient bridge in Lijiang this morning, before the crowds took over. You can see goldfish in the water.

We had a slow but pretty journey to the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain cable car – most of the Chinese tourists went up the nearest one, but my guide had something more remote in mind and we headed for the cable car to a Yak Meadow, where there is a small Tibetan Buddhist monastery. We walked a slow circuit to admire the view – I reckon we reached about 3800m (over 12,000ft) but I am reasonably acclimatised now and I felt fine.It was a beautiful morning, sunny and still. Not long after our descent the clouds thickened and a light rain began to fall. I never cease to be amazed by my luck.

Ascent through Azaleas

from the Tibetan Buddhist monastery

view from about 3800m

Hoopoe!

Sign of the day

My guide told me about her life. Her birth parents were teachers, employed by the Government, her mum Naxi and her dad Han Chinese. They already had two children, but as they were both girls (i.e. duds) they tried again, but another little girl was born. If they’d kept her both parents would have lost their jobs, Instead, they handed her over to some Naxi relatives who lived in a remote village. It was an hour’s walk to the nearest road and then a bus to get to school. The adoptive parents were peasants earning about £100/yr, too poor for proper shoes or umbrellas, so when it was winter the little girl had to walk to the school bus through the mud and the rain in home-made shoes (this is only 20 years ago). They were often hungry but her adoptive parents could see she was a bright girl and spent all their money on her school books. She eventually won scholarships for university and through sheer hard work and determination she has succeeded in achieving a much happier life. Her birth parents went on to try again and this time they had a boy, whom they kept and paid for. I cannot imagine how she feels about all of that, but she tells the story in entirely neutral tones.She did say that she has a better relationship with her adoptive parents than she does with her birth parents.

Breathtaking descent

To Lijiang

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Mary276

Strange things I saw on the way from Dali to Lijiang: snow capped mountains, tanks on exercise, a film crew, harvested wheat gathered into stooks in the field, Cezanne style haystacks, roadworks separated from the highway with cones and bunting, a town called Xiyi (West One) with very little in common with the Harley St area of London. Road construction is advancing at such a pace that you must need an update for your satnav every week – we came along part new dual carriageway, part widened A road, part old mountain road. My favourite local vehicle I call the bike-truck, a motorbike front with a small flatbed truck in rear (3 wheels in all). There are handlebars, a faring, rear mirrors like a bike, but with a bench seat. You can have a driver and a couple of relatives up front, plus a little one on the driver’s lap, and then in the truck you can either have the rest of the family or a load of wood, stones or vegetables with just a couple of family members on top. No helmets or seat belts or protection against the elements.

Bike-truck (2nd Class – no faring. 3rd class has a bicycle instead of motorbike)

Lijiang surprised me by being extremely pretty – it lies at 2400m on a plateau with mountains on all sides, including 6000m peaks visible in the far north.The whole city has maintained the traditional tree lined streets and pleasant architecture that is so often absent with modern expansion in China. The old city is a maze of alleys and canals, all lined with willows, cherry trees and climbing roses. Almost all of the buildings in the old city, sadly, are devoted to the sale of tat and (God help us) there is a McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza hut. We wandered about and called in at a teahouse. A tea master made me Pu’er tea, green tea and 200 year old black tea. All delicious and fascinating to watch the care with which they make tea here.

My bed at the Zen Garden Hotel, Lijiang

The locals are mostly from the Naxi minority. They have an animist religion presided over by shamans. Today happens to be ‘sweeping the ancestors tombs’ day (this seems to apply to all the major religions here) so the shamans were not around town – too busy doing ceremonies at tombs in the mountains.The Naxi prize fat, dark women, on the grounds that those characteristics mean they are strong and hard workers! I could be in luck. My guide is half Naxi – when she was a child the government weren’t interested in minorities and she only learned Mandarin. Now, the government wants to preserve minorities and so the dialect is taught in school. She told me about the ‘one child’ policy. Essentially you can have a second child but you have to pay, the amount depending on your salary and the area where you live. For a tour guide in Lijiang the cost is about £18,000 – prohibitive for most.