Stone circles - prehistoric or otherwise

I was interested to read today about a Dorset couple who moved from Weymouth to Dorchester and took a "prehistoric" stone circle with them. My first reaction was "WHAT????"

On reading several versions of the story online (the Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, Sun and also some US and Canadian sites) it transpires this was not the case at all. John and Suky Burton, well-known Dorset pagans - he is a Druid and she a witch - were moving from a large mansion outside Weymouth to a smaller house in Dorchester. In the grounds of their old house was a stone circle, which had apparently been constructed in the early 1900s by Thomas Burberry (of Burberry fame) using thirteen Portland stones. The pagan couple had used the circle for many a ritual, and were intending to leave it for the next owners to enjoy.

But when the property developer buying the house said he intended to break up the circle and dump the stones, John and Suky had to act. They hired a great crane and twelve "burly" men, and moved the thirteen stones to their new home in Dorchester. It so happens that their new place is on a ley line which runs between Maiden Castle and Maumbury Rings, and they positioned and aligned the stones very carefully with this. Apparently they are both delighted with the new energy they can feel around the stones, and there were some lovely photos of them both in robes next to their new circle.

You can imagine the scepticism of some people's comments at these online reports. To be fair, most of the news reports were fairly neutral in their commentary and simply reported the event as it was with no obvious bias. The Sun of course could not resist a little sensationalism, and their headline was "Our crazy pagan couple believe stones give them powers". However, the rest of the article was fairly restrained and even managed to avoid the dreaded Sun-puns. The papers reported that the couple then invited twenty other witches to a night-time ritual to dedicate the stones (wish I'd been there!) and this is what inspired me to blog about this.

I thought - isn't it great that this can now be done openly, and reported in the national (and international) press? It wasn't so long ago that people had to be so secretive about their pagan beliefs, and could never have openly held a ritual such as this. There may well be local backlash towards them of course, but hopefully the majority of people will be tolerant, and leave the couple in peace to follow their own beliefs. There's such a growing interest in paganism; one of the papers quoted that in the 2001 census there were 30,000 pagans. I would imagine this figure will be infinitely higher in the next census as more people come out of the broom closet.

Having been so happy to see how open pagans can now be about their beliefs, I was then saddened at one of the comments posted about the report. A man accused the couple of being "super-market trolley" pagans, and dismissed Suky's claims of being a hereditary witch from her mother and grandmother before her. The man making the comment was clearly, from the other things he said, a pagan himself. It made me sad to see yet more evidence of this awful back-biting and bitching that goes on amongst some people who purport to have the same broad beliefs.

If paganism wants to be acknowledged as a religion or spirituality, then followers need to present a united front to the world. I do understand that there are many different branches and traditions amongst people loosely classified as pagans, and nobody likes to have their beliefs lumped in with others'. But for us to be taken and treated seriously, we do need to show the rest of the world that we are together in promoting a green spirituality, whatever path we've chosen to follow.

I was concerned, when writing Stonewylde, that I may upset some groups with the type of paganism I'd chosen to portray in my story. I thought that maybe I'd get angry letters or e-mails from people saying "This isn't right - we do don't it that way and you've got it all wrong". Thankfully, so far this hasn't happened, and I do know that Stonewylde has been read by a great many pagans. It seems that most people accept that what I've created is just my version and I don't speak for any other groups. It would be lovely if this same tolerance and understanding could be spread across the board.

Incidentally, the news reports I read about John and Suky's stones did make me think - when does a Stone Circle become so sacred and special that it must not be moved? How ancient does it have to be before it gains special status and must be protected? All stones of course are prehistoric (think about it!) but the ones in this news story had only been in place for 100 years or so. Is it the place that makes them special, or are any stones, aligned with intent, sacred in themselves? I'd be interested to know what others think about this.

The photo at the start of this post (I obviously couldn't use the ones in the papers for fear of breaching copyright) was taken back in the summer at a small stone circle called Kit's Coty, near Maidstone in Kent. And unlike the repositioned Portland stones, these had been here for a very long time!

Kit's film interview with Friends of English Magic

Last month I was interviewed by Martyn Drake, the guy who runs the Friends of English Magic website. He set it up after reading Susanna Clarke's wonderful book "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell", and realising that there was no website for her books.

Martyn is a very proactive man, and spends a lot of his time on projects such as this. Through his dealings with Susanna, he made contact with Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn, who were the screen-writers for the film adaptation for Neil Gaiman's "Stardust". He's interviewed them, and you can see all about this on his Friends of English Magic website. Jane Goldman, apart from being a successful writer and TV presenter, is also famous for being married to Jonathan Ross.

I've bought Susanna Clarke's book and it's sitting waiting for me to read it, but when I'm writing myself I can't and don't want to read anything else in case it interferes or influences me in my own writing. But two of my sons have read "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" and they say it's brilliant. I wonder if Susanna would like Stonewylde?

I was delighted when Martyn read all three Stonewylde books and loved them. We exchanged e-mails for a while and then he suggested the film interview. This took place in my home in October, the day after he returned from a trip to the Far East. He's now edited the interview into three short films, which he's put up on YouTube and I've put onto my website.

Martyn had prepared a whole barrage of questions about Stonewylde, my inspiration and writing process, the characters and plot, and the future. He'd been aided and abetted in compiling the questions by members of the Stonewylde Forum, whom he'd invited to contribute to the pre-interview process.

I really enjoyed the interview as there's nothing I like more than talking about Stonewylde! It was tricky though because I didn't want to give away too much of the story in case the films were seen by people who hadn't yet read the books. But Martyn was great, and he's produced a really professional trilogy of films which you can now watch. Any comments welcome please! And I realise now I mustn't keep saying "um"! Nor pulling such silly faces!

You can visit Martyn's Friends of English Magic website at www.foem.org.uk

The Owl Moon - November's Full Moon

Tonight is the Owl Moon at Stonewylde. Readers of the books will know how the story of Stonewylde pivots on the pagan festivals and full moons (which some call Sabats and Esbats). When researching for the books, I came across many different names for each full moon, for it seems in earlier cultures time was measured by the moon's cycle (hence the word "month"). Unsure of which names I should use and for fear of perhaps offending some people to whom these things really matter, I decided to make up my own names for some moons and only use the very commonly accepted ones for others.

This is what I used:

THE STONEWYLDE MOON CALENDAR

January - Wolf Moon
February - Ice Moon
March - Storm Moon
April - Growing Moon
May - Hare Moon
June - Mead Moon
July - Hay Moon
August - Corn Moon
September - Harvest Moon
October - Hunter's Moon
November - Owl Moon
December - Frost Moon

When there are thirteen moons in a year, the second one in the month is called the Blue Moon, and is considered to be very special. The next one will fall apparently on Dec 31st 2009. Tonight is the Owl Moon, and this is one of my favourites. The light outside is clear and silvery, bringing to mind that wonderful poem which inspired the opening line of the first book, Magus of Stonewylde,

"Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon ..."

Whether or not you call yourself a pagan, most people would surely describe the time of the full moon as magical. There's so much folklore in different cultures about the full moon, and at Stonewylde it's honoured by all as a time when the women are fertile. This ties in with the concept of the Triple Goddess - the moon as waxing (maiden), full (mother) and waning (crone). So the full moon is seen as a time of ripeness and fecundity, and in older times planting and harvesting were done according to the moon calender.

Nowadays, with the growing interest in more alternative methods of healing and an understanding that maybe our ancestors did know more than we've given them credit for in the past century, perhaps it's time to look at just how the full moon does affect our lives. We know the effect it has on the tides, and given that living things (ourselves included) are composed of so much water, maybe the full moon does make things a little different to other times of the month.

At Stonewylde the hares dance to the full moon, and this phenomenon has actually been documented for real. They also sit transfixed, staring up at the full moon, which I have called being "moongazy". The first novel opens with the full moon rising over the city and Sylvie going frantic with a strange energy. This is contrasted with the moon rising over Stonewylde, where Yul sits with his back against a monolith and the hares around him, fighting back tears at the bitter injustice of his life. We discover as the story progresses that Sylvie is moongazy, and it's only when she dances with the hares that she feels at last some relief from the apparent madness that has affected her for so many years. The word "lunacy" is derived from the fact that many people were affected by the full moon, and of course there's the werewolf folklore too which plays on these fears.

Over the centuries the demonisation of pagan beliefs and folk customs has resulted in the full moon being associated with witchcraft, spells, bats and broomsticks. But tonight there are people all over the world who'll be honouring the full moon, perhaps casting a circle and calling on the elemental forces which govern our planet. This is a potent night and everything will be charged by the unseen magic and power that appears every single month. This is the time to meditate, cast a spell or make a wish; the time to harness the power of intent and focus on the month ahead.

I called the November full moon the owl moon in honour of my aunt, to whom the Stonewylde Series is dedicated. I began writing Stonewylde five years ago in November as my aunt, who was in her eighties, was letting go of life. She died on November 29th and never read my books, but she would have loved them. I always called her my owl aunt, and when she died I inherited her collection of owls which now sit in my kitchen and watch unblinking over me. The Owl Moon is for my aunt, and in remembrance of her.

Self-publishing - the good, the bad and the ugly

I've had several enquiries recently about publishing, with people asking for advice about both writing and getting published. So I thought it may be helpful to some to clarify the different types of publishing and how you go about it. Not that I'm setting myself up as an expert you understand! I've also recently been invited to share ten top writing tips by a lovely website called "More to Life than Shoes". I'll put a link at the end of this.

I've said before that the easiest part of writing a book is the writing bit. Which if you're just starting out will probably seem daft, because the prospect of that blank page or screen is very daunting. But honestly, writing is easy compared to trying to find a publisher. Unless you have inside contacts, you'll have to first find a literary agent. There's a comprehensive list in The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, so use that as your first reference point. Most publishers will not even look at unsolicited manuscripts from unknown writers, but insist that all submissions come through an agent. This is obviously a first vetting point, and I would imagine that many writers fall at this first hurdle, because finding an agent to take you on is hard.

When I'd finished Stonewylde I wrote to several agents and received several rejections, before I found Clare Pearson of Eddison Pearson. I'd imagined I was writing for a teenage audience, and approached literary agents who specialised in teen fiction. Clare was cautious but encouraging, and once she'd read the whole of the first three books, we signed a contract. She was completely "stonewylded" and spent the next year making me edit and rewrite until the manuscripts were polished to her high standards. We disagreed on many things (mostly when she wanted me to cut down on my waffle!) but almost invariably I realised that she was right and followed her suggestions. Then we pitched the first book to several children's publishers. Clare was optimistic at this stage and even predicted a "bidding frenzy". This filled me with great excitement as you can imagine.

Sadly this never materialised, and one by one the rejections arrived. Many of the people at the publishing houses enjoyed the book themselves, but thought it was "too dark" or "too adult" for their market. I'd been very careful in writing the books not to make the themes too adult or explicit, but clearly the publishers felt it wasn't right for them. Clare and I were devastated. She then took the unusual step of suggesting that I publish at least the first book myself, because she felt Stonewylde deserved to see the light of day and she was still convinced it was a potential best-seller. This was very altruistic advice, for literary agents only get paid if they actually sell the book to a publisher. By recommending I publish myself, she wouldn't see a penny. And she'd devoted hours and hours to helping me polish the three books word by word, and then printing first chapters and sending them to all the publishers. I shall always be grateful to Clare.

This is the point where I started to find out about self-publishing. And this is the information I wish to share with you, in case it helps if you're considering it. My first advice would be ... DON'T!!! If I'd known then what I know now, I wouldn't have done it. I had no concept at all of just how hard the whole thing is. Publishing is a closed world, full of networks, money and expertise. As a little author stumbling in, you'll get doors slammed in your face and you have to be so very determined to persevere against the odds. The problem isn't actually printing your manuscript into a book (which is all I thought about at this stage as it seemed so difficult) but getting your books into shops. More on this later.

There are three basic options for turning that manuscript into a real book, with variations. You can pay a few thousand pounds to a company to do it, and will have a few hundred books printed which will probably languish in your garage or their warehouse (at cost) despite their promises to market for you. I don't have personal experience of this method but have read lots of tales about it. If money isn't a problem, this is perhaps the easiest option. It's sometimes referred to scathingly as "vanity publishing", although some of the companies that offer this service insist they're not vanity publishers. Your books are highly unlikely to ever sell in any quantity, because despite assurances that the company will do marketing for you, apparently it doesn't really happen. I may stand corrected on this of course, but all I've heard about this method of publishing is quite negative.

The next option is to do "print on demand", also known as "pod". This means that rather than have hundreds or thousands of books printed at great cost, they're printed in small quantities as and when required. You can organise your own jacket, blurb, typesetting, barcode and ISBN number, or most pod companies can do this for you (at an extra cost of course). Your book stays in their computer systems and is only printed when you order copies. There are many companies who offer this and it's perhaps the cheapest option in that you don't have a huge initial outlay. There are set up costs of course, more if the company are doing all the preliminary work for you. But it's pretty foolproof and means you don't have hundreds of books lying around needing to be stored. This is one really important consideration of course - storage of the books, which must be dry and fairly warm. Books by their nature are bulky! If you're thinking of just selling a few books to friends and maybe local or specialist outlets, then pod is perhaps the best option, although the cost of each book is quite high. You'll be unlikely to make much profit if any, but if the main thing for you is to see your writing published and you're not looking to make a living, this is a fairly safe, no-risk option.

The third option, which is what I did, is to set up your own publishing company and do a proper large print run of the books. This is quite fraught with minefields of course and you will need to do a lot of research first. You need to find an artist or designer to do your book jacket. You need to buy a set of ten ISBN numbers (they don't sell them individually) and register with Nielsen BookData. You'll need to typeset your manuscript to turn it into book format, although often the printers can arrange this for you (at a cost of course!). You then decide on the print run. The books aren't printed digitally as in pod, but on a proper litho machine. See the picture above - this is me at the printers with Bernie of Cox & Wyman, who looked after us from start to finish, when the Stonewylde books were being printed.

The more books you have printed, the less each one costs. Basic stuff but very hard to decide on. Because the more you have printed, the greater storage facilities you'll need, and that's not cheap. Our first print run on Magus of Stonewylde was 800 copies. We've had other reprints since of increasing quantities. The latest print run was 5000 copies (this is the point where it starts to make economic sense) and each book worked out at about one third of the price of the original print run! But until you know your book will sell, you'd be mad to have 5000 copies printed.

Now your books are printed, and you'd think you're home and dry. Wrong! Writing is the easiest bit, printing is the next easiest bit - the hard part is getting your books into shops. You now need to find a distributor/wholesaler, because apart from a couple of little local independent bookshops (if you're lucky enough to still have such a thing) who may buy direct from you, nearly all independents and definitely all the chains will not buy direct from a small, unknown publisher. It's too much paperwork and hassle for them, and they'll only buy from Gardners or Bertrams, or maybe smaller distributors if you're fortunate.

You now have to persuade one of the distributors to take on your books, and this is not easy. You have to persist. It's a Catch 22, as I've said before on my tipping point post, because they want to see evidence of sales, but you can't have sales without a distributor! They'll also take a huge whack of discount from you so even though your book may be retailing at £7.99, by the time they've taken their cut and you've taken into account the cost of designing, printing and warehousing, you're left with very little of this. If anything! You can also sell online of course, and anyone can set up an Amazon account. Again, they take a huge amount of discount from you. The temptation is to bump up the price of your book, but then you'll find nobody will buy it because it's too expensive.

Even when you do finally manage to persuade a distributor to take the books, you still need to convince book shops that they're worth stocking. Unless you're already famous, why would they want your book? Who will buy it? How much are you spending on advertising and what is your marketing plan? Waterstones are a veritable Fort Knox and of course you're always up against this antipathy towards anyone who's self-published. The general feeling is (perhaps understandably) that if your book were any good, a publisher would have taken it on. The fact you've had to do it yourself means it must be rubbish.

I will continue this saga at a later date about marketing, because even when you've found distributors and persuaded bookshops to take your books, you still have to somehow convince people to go out and actually buy them! I hope that all I've written may help anyone thinking of going into writing. It's really not easy at all. There are thousands and thousands of books published every year, so why would anyone want yours? What is so unique and special about it? And if it is unique, why would anyone want to take a risk with something so different? See what I mean? Unless you're utterly convinced you've created something that really will make it one day (or have lots of money to burn) - DON'T DO IT!!!

Having said that, I'm so glad I did! Yesterday was exactly five years to the day that I started writing Stonewylde. I now have three books out there on the shelves with a fourth to be published next summer. I have a lovely website that lots of people visit, a newsletter that goes out to hundreds of readers and a wonderful forum where many of my Stonewylde fans meet daily. I've had some brilliant help along the way to create all this - first from Clare Pearson and then from my husband. And of course Stonewylde fans have achieved huge steps forward in helping me to promote the books. I've been very lucky so far, but if I'd just gone it alone without the support I had, I know I wouldn't be in the position I am today. So please, anyone reading this who's thinking of starting a book - just be aware of how very difficult it is to get beyond the manuscript stage.

You can read the piece I wrote about writing for the website "More to Life than Shoes" by clicking here.

Hallowe'en - actually, I've been thinking ...

After my grumpy old woman post of Friday, I've been thinking a lot about this. I know that some of my forum members and friends do Trick or Treating with their children (and I've just noticed a new comment on the last post to this effect too) and one year when my sons were small, we did it too, much in the way of the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" line of thinking. As I said before, it's not the dressing up or mischief I really object to, it's more the whole commercial aspect of it I dislike. And having my door knocked on by strangers and being made to feel obliged to cough up. I dislike carol singers for much the same reason - maybe I'm just mean!

I was also a bit concerned after posting that I might have offended some of my American and Canadian readers, because what I said did sound rather anti towards them. I haven't had any "angry from Connecticut" type e-mails, but I would like to stress that it's not American customs that I dislike, more the way we've adopted the runaway commercialism towards this festival that I saw in shops in the USA during my August trip. I really was shocked at the sheer volume of merchandise available, and also how very big the whole thing is not just to children, as it is in the UK, but to adults too. Their homes must be decorated to the hilt if the goods I saw are bought by shoppers. And then it's all got to come down for Christmas and all the tat that goes with that. Is it the same for Diwali and Hannukah I wonder?

This has led me to think hard about why we do it at all. Anyone who's read Stonewylde will know that life there revolves around the eight pagan festivals. Everything is geared towards celebrating the current festival and then preparing for the next one. Eight festivals a year mean that there's only ever a gap of six or seven weeks between each celebration. The standing stones in the Stone Circle are painted elaborately just before each festival with new emblems. The Great Barn is decorated, as is the Village Green for some festivals, and of course the Hall and the Villagers' cottages. All the folk of Stonewylde dress up for the festivals in their robes, tunics and head-dresses too. And I got to thinking - why am I objecting so much to what we're doing in the Outside World when I love what they do at Stonewylde?

It made me realise that perhaps there is a human need to celebrate. Every religion, even the most uncommercial ones such as Buddhism, celebrates festivals and marks the occasion with special food and drink, decorations and costumes. In the Western World where perhaps a loose type of Christianity is the dominant religion (or so I believe but I may be corrected on this of course!) there's Valentine's Day, Easter, Harvest Festival, Hallowe'en and the biggest one of all, Christmas. We also celebrate Rites of Passage such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, baptisms, etc. Is there a human need to do this I wonder? Do we need milestones and calendar events in our lives and our journey through the year? And is this a throw-back to what's celebrated at Stonewylde and other ancient cultures when festivals were a way of navigating through the year, long before people had paper calendars and diaries to mark the changing seasons?

So ... maybe by decorating our homes with stuff at Hallowe'en and Christmas, sending greetings cards for every occasion, buying vast amounts of chocolate at Easter and all the other things we do is merely a throw-back from ancient times when we needed to map our lives to some kind of plan, and perhaps bring some joy into the drabness of survival by doing exciting things like dressing in special outfits and performing strange rituals. In which case the whole Trick or Treating thing could be seen in a different light.

Incidentally I'd love to know where and how this custom originated. And the name too. I can't help but think it comes from the USA, but I don't know. I do know that when the Pilgrim Fathers and then the whole influx of settlers from the UK, Eire and Europe reached the shores of America and Canada, they brought with them all their customs, some of which remained but were not kept in the motherland. For instance, I was fascinated to learn that although in the UK we call the season between summer and winter "autumn", in those times we called it "fall". In the UK this changed over time to "autumn", but the custom of calling it "fall" remained in America. I've heard of other things (which escape me now) that went the same way. I wonder if the idea of knocking on peoples' doors and threatening mischief if the householder didn't provide a treat is perhaps an old UK custom. If so, how strange that it went out of practice here, only to be revived today. It's certainly recent here because I know it wasn't about when I was a child. If anyone knows anything about this, I'd love to hear.

Anyway, I hope I've clarified my previous post now. It really is the blatant consumerism and commercialism I object to so strongly. That and having my privacy invaded by people I don't know knocking on my door. This morning I was disturbed by two Jehovah's Witnesses trying to engage me in conversation and give me a pamphlet. Poor things - they were sent away with a flea in their ears, as you can imagine! What on earth gives them the right to disturb my peaceful Sunday morning, force me to be quite rude in order to get rid of them, and try in the first place to convert me to their awful religion? Can you imagine the uproar there'd be if for instance Muslims knocked on peoples' doors on a regular basis and tried to convert everyone to Islam? Or perhaps even more shocking, a group of witches!! There'd be complete outrage I guess. So how come it's accepted by most as almost inevitable that at some point you'll be door-stepped by Watchtower-brandishing cultists in their best clothes trying to pretend they just want a friendly chat? Mmnn - food for another post maybe about the whole issue of trying to convert people to your religion!