Good morning
It’s Monday, and I’m sitting in Pret A Manger in Station Square, Cambridge in a slightly sad, quiet and contemplative mood.
On Saturday afternoon, a young woman sat on the big sofa between the two doors in and out of Caffe Nero. She was wrapped warmly, and absorbed in a hardcover book.
Whatever she was reading, she was ‘there’. Everyone reading this loves Fantasy. You understand this. You know what it is like to be transported into another world through reading.
Earlier last week, I received an email from my editor’s husband.
Susan DeFreitas completely restructured my book ‘Beyond The Shining Portals’. I’m proud of the book and it’s wonderful to read the reviews on Amazon. I’m proud that, like that young woman in Caffe Nero, people made themselves comfortable, and the words I had written transported them into wonderful adventures in strange worlds. Susan deserves a lot of credit for making that work.
Susan has died. She was 47 years old, married with a child.
I followed Susan’s career for years. I wanted an editor whose values chimed with my own. I found that person in Susan. Here she is on YouTube.
Thinking, this morning, about the girl on the sofa and Susan’s death has sparked an insight.
We experience the death of a well-loved character in a book as a real event in that moment. The death of Nancy, murdered by Bill Sikes, in Charles Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist’ shocked me. It still shocks me.
As an author, I realise that ‘killing off’ a well-loved character provides a powerful impetus to the story.
Today, I realised that it comes with emotional consequences for the reader. I have used this device once. I will consider very carefully before using it again.
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Just a reminder. In one week, around this time, my flight will be coming into Beijing’s Capital Airport. There will be no newsletter next Sunday.
You may not hear from me for three weeks, but I will be busy writing in my favourite Beijing cafes.
I remember sitting in one of those cafes and listening to the music. It was perfect. About half an hour later, I realised my laptop was providing the background music for the cafe.