Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Writing and Domesticity

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Writing and Domesticity


The two are natural enemies as Cyril Connolly observed in “The Enemies of Promise”! However, since housekeeping is inevitable for those of us whose mates are not up to it, and who would rather have peace and order and fewer pages than squalor, all that can be done is use the techniques of judo, and turn the opponent’s strength against him. Use the time spent in housekeeping to think, pray, listen to books on CD.


And there are resemblances. Getting a final draft is a no bull-shit time like decluttering a room–tidy it up, find a place for it, or out it goes.


You may be interested in my long essay on Domesticity and Writing 
at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wandering-Between-Two-Worlds-Essays/dp/0955373700/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283982806&sr=1-1

or on my website at www.anitamathias.com
http://www.anitamathias.com/Dom_Art.pdf






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The Uses of Blogging for a Writer

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Blogging, in my experience, is the very best way to break a writers’ block. It is a little like journalling, in that you write fast, with lower standards, suspending your inner critic. You write fast, and write a lot. And the habits of writing fast, writing fluently, translate over to one’s real writing.


Milton said he wrote prose “with his left hand.” If one is both a serious literary writer, and a blogger, one could view blogging as “left-hand writing” which one does partly to keep thinking, keep writing, keep one’s fingers nimble and ready to the task. 


I do my “real” writing so much more easily and confidently because, 6 days a week, I update my three blogs, 
wanderingbetweentwoworlds.blogspot.com among them, and so have got used to writing fast, to the best of my ability. Not striving for perfection, but for a piece of writing which is “good enough.”

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The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean

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The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean


We listened to this on CD during our holiday in France recently. We were mesmerized initially but the tale of misadventure and extreme polar suffering did pall eventually.


Splendid description of Antarctica. I met Geraldine McCaughrean at a Writers in Oxford/Society of Authors party in Oxford a couple of months ago, and asked her if she had been to Antarctica. “No,” she said, laughing and shaking her head, as if the suggestion were ridiculous.


That’s encouraging to me–that one can write such a vivid novel, based on research and imagination. 


She is evidently steeped in the literature of polar exploration –Scott, Shackleton, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Amundsen, Mawson. (Incidentally, all these five authors have been republished by the publishing company my husband and I own, Benediction Classics). I loved the seamless way she links this zany, doomed expedition with those of Scott, Cherry-Garrard, Amundsen and Shackleton. I particularly loved Shackleton’s quote in a letter to his wife when he turned back 97 miles from the Pole, “I thought you would rather have a live donkey than a dead lion!!”


All in all, a gripping thrilling young adult novel

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Lolly Woodward Dunlap 1/2/1922-9/8/2009

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My thoughts have been full of Lolly Dunlap who left this life on the 8th of September. We met weekly almost exactly 8 years ago during a difficult season of my life. We met to pray, study Scripture, and talk–i.e. me soaking in her wisdom and loving spirit.

She was one of the most generous people I have ever met–like Heidi Baker in Mozambique, she sought nothing from anyone, not help, or affirmation, appreciation, approval or attention, all of which were richly deserved. Her thought in all her relationships was how she could bless people. When I think of God’s promise to Abraham, “I will bless you, and you will be a blessing,” I think of Lolly who was a blessing because of her gentle, humble, loving spirit and her immersion in God’s word, a blessing simply because of who she was, over and above what she did. I do not use superlatives lightly, but she was one of the few true saints I have met in my life ( which can also be said of her brother Dick Woodward and his wife, Ginnie).

I have the sweetest memories of walking into her sunny bedroom, and of her looking up from Ephesians, or whatever she was studying, and telling me of her insights, then of looking up the verse in other translations. She rambled a bit, and I smiled to myself, for I am 40 years younger, ramble too, and that’s okay. Each sentence of my spiritual rambles with her was interesting and enriching, and the dots connected into a rich pattern.
There is life and enrichment and joy in God alone, in Scripture alone. One can have a rich inner life when there is little happening in one’s outer life, when material things do not abound. I learnt this from Lolly. She knew, to use one of her favourite Scriptures, “the river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.”
She was one of those rare Christian women who acknowledged her lack of interest in cooking, and house-keeping (something I have in common with her, alas!) “I just kept a trail clear when the boys were young, and we had guests in and out of the house all the time,” she said. So saints can adopt that approach to house-keeping?! What joy and liberation!
I ask for a double portion of her spirit.
She was utterly humble, had long left self and its boastfulness behind, so what I heard of her exploits with her husband John Dunlap I mostly heard from others: establishing a mega-church in Norfolk, the spiritual mothering of many, including Dick Woodward, Bill Warrick, and her own children (Dick described her son Don, in print, as “the most sinless human being I have ever known.” (with such a mother, I am not surprised!), the establishing of Norfolk Christian School, of the Triple R Ranch, work with Billy Graham Crusades, a successful radio programme, programmes for those with learning disabilities. Did these come up in our conversations? Only slightly. Her focus was on the present, on her Lord, on the conflicted young woman who sought to absorb her wisdom and her spirit.
She knew Christ, and told me of instances when she saw him almost tangibly, when he, so to say, tapped her on her shoulder and spoke to her in the succinct one-liners He specialises in. ” The more I think of the Lord, I realise how good-natured he was. Those disciples must have tried his patience!” she said, when I grumbled on about someone getting on my friable nerves. The good-natured Christ! Lolly had a gift of making the esoteric practical :How can we love like Christ, for heaven’s sake, and what exactly is love?.
I loved her Lollyisms, ” I am all right, because He is all right.” or ” The Lord knows.”
I am rambling on in the way that inwardly amused me when Lolly did it! She often told me that she had no fear of death, and so wanted to see Jesus.
I want to, too, every day, though I am quite content to see Him in this wild, weird, wonderful, God-made, God-blessed earth for four or five decades more. But heaven will be wilder, weirder, more wonderful still, and I look forward to seeking out Lolly again!

The Good Book Blog is in at #16 among the Top UK Literature blogs.

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Top 20 UK literature blogs – September

I am pleased to be in at #16.

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Bayeux Cathedral, The Bayeaux Tapestry, Visiting Bayeux, Normandy

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I had a perfect day. I loved Bayeux Cathedral–a fantastic mish-mash of flying buttresses and gargoyles from the outside, inside, a chaste Gothic cathedrals with the most amazing stained glass.

I just love Gothic cathedrals. Nothing prepares you for the moment of sheer awe and wonder when you enter from the dusty exterior, frequently covered with scaffolding to the chaste, pure, magnificent interiors, illuminated by stained glass.

It’s sad that architectural fashions changed, but I suppose as Tennyson put it,“God fulfils himself in many ways, let one good custom should corrupt the world.”

I loved walking by the canals in Bayeux, not as celebrated as Bruges or Ghent or Amsterdam, but lovely.

And I loved the Moules Marinieres for dinner, though the bowls were enormous, far more than one person could eat.

We enjoyed the Bayeux Tapestry, though have bought an illustrated book to go through it slowly. I was particularly charmed by the mythical animals, and the medieval clothes & armour–well, I guess they were modern and up-to-date when the tapestry was embroidered.

Now on our way to the D-Day beaches.

D-Day is still remembered here. Everywhere. The Churchill Hotel. Operation Overlord Hotel. Signs in bistros saying “Welcome to our Liberators!!”  An ironic copy of a sign from the British cemetery in the Bayeux tapestry museum read (well, in Latin), We whom William Conquered are now happy to return as Liberators. What an ironic turning of the other cheek.

The Normans were initially the Norseman, the Northman. The far-reaching Viking influence which we noticed in Ireland earlier this month, and which is evident everywhere in the North of England was evident again.

Want to write a novel in a month? Try Nanawrimo!

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This is in my calendar for 2011. What a great project! I have too many pots simmering on the fire, and not enough energy for this year, but am going to get into gear with ideas and research materials for next year. A date, anyone?

What is NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.
In 2008, we had over 120,000 participants. More than 20,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.
So, to recap:
What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time.
Who: You! We can’t do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let’s write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era’s most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.
Still confused? Just visit the How NaNoWriMo Works page!

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