bethunderdown.bsky.social
Novelist with Penguin Viking, creative writing teacher with the University of Manchester and Faber Academy. Hiking, gardening, crochet, coeliac disease: old-person stuff.
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182 following
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Just went from feeling grey to great š„°
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Goals
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Really! Thatās so funny! Did you do English?
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I think youāre very much not alone there! Essentially I guess it does just take longer than stuff that can be made up fully. But I find that the research gives me ideas I wouldnāt have had alone, which helps make the time invested feel reasonable
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Thank you Katie!
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If you like the flavour of this, there are still a few spots on the online historical fiction course Iāll be teaching in January! Could make a good Christmas present, or present-to-self? If you have questions about it, feel free to message me!
faberacademy.com/product/writ...
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So looking forward to this book!
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Thanks! Iāll check it out
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Riches!!
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Thereās probably loads of good examples but my brain refuses to produce them
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Iād love to be added!
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And we love you, and your work š
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Sounds weird, but to a degree I can make myself get some perspective by recognising that Iāve been around long enough now to see various peopleās stars rise and fall. And however dented I am, IāM STILL HERE
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All these! Another that works for me is: consciously be glad for those of my writer friends whoāve had a recent success, AND lovingly remember how humanely/gracefully/messily they bore it when they werenāt doing so well. Almost everyone I know whoās successful has had things fail
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I would be VERY interested to hear your opinions on #themirrorandthelight including if any of this ā¬ļø chimes with you
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The feeling comes through to the tv program of āwell why tf are you doing thatā and there is no answer
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But, because of the kind of narrator sheās established in the first two books, itās not possible for the reader to put their finger on HOW heās unreliable (plus, youāre not expecting him to be, cos heās not in the first two books).
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And I THINK itās because Mantel too finds his decisions hard to explain, and therefore in a sort of way Cromwell becomes unreliable.
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Reason 2: I think we feel more emotionally distanced from Cromwellās actions in this series - itās hard to understand why he does some of the things he does. This is true of the book, too.
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Itās like they did it because they didnāt want to do flashbacks during the ep, but the effect is weird and, I think, BAD.
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But the way itās cut together is BIZARRE and cheap-feeling, like when thereās no money for a proper voiceover on sports highlights so itās just random chunk of action followed by random chunk of action. Not that Iām suggesting a voiceover. But.
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Reason 1: Reason one: those flashback snippets from the previous season at the start of each episode. Clearly there to remind you of story points that are going to be brought into that episode.
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Iāve narrowed it down to two reasons so far: one is fixable but petty (they could have done something about it) and the other is maybe more to do with the source material (ie the book)
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And hereās the crochet project Iām working on at the moment. Itās for my tiny nephew. Itās going to be a broccoli but honestly doing all the tiny chain loops on the leafy tree top is driving me up the wall
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And hereās where you can find out more about the online Historical Fiction course Iām delighted to be teaching for Faber Academy for the first time from January. Devised completely by me! š±š„³:
faberacademy.com/product/writ...
(Makes a great or onerous Christmas present!)
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Here is where you can find out more about how to come and study with me on the MA Creative Writing at the University of Manchester:
www.alc.manchester.ac.uk/centrefornew...
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It was a National Trust shop that had got lost and found itself in the big city
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Add @glenjamesbrown.bsky.social š
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Have you listened to the Otherworld podcast? In one of the episodes of that they talk to someone who remembers floating downstairs as a kid, and independently their sibling remembers the same years later. Their house had a ghost and it stopped at that kind of age (ie, children got too heavy to lift)
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Do ittt! In the true spirit of erratic high street sizing, Iāve found the blue to be slightly snugger than the black, but still comfy. So if youāre open to either colour would recommend getting both/returning what you donāt wantā¦