VOLCANOES on TENERIFE - A-Z challenge

THERE ARE 
411 VOLCANOES ON TENERIFE !!

NOT THAT WE NEED TO WORRY, apparently. When the tiny island of El Hierro had months of undersea eruptions and earthquakes a couple of years ago, the Tenerife Government issued this statement:

The Cabildo would like to stress that Tenerife remains a safe destination, not only because there is currently no evidence of any risk of volcanic activity, but also because the island is equipped to deal with any volcanic risk situation (evacuation, volcanic surveillance and monitoring programme, etc).

The caldera of Mount Teide is one of the largest in the world, so when the top of the original mountain blew off it must have been a spectacular sight - albeit one best viewed from afar.

The landscape of our adopted island inspired me to write my first book some years ago. Originally I called it ROCK CHILD but in its present draft it is called VOLCANIC RACE. This prologue has never seen the light of day before, so please be kind - and if you're an agent, I'm looking for one!

Picture the scene – a world dotted with volcanoes and cut by rivers of fire that glow bright gold under a dark sky. Dinosaurs graze and hunt, tiny creatures scuttle, insects zip and pester.

Then a meteor the size of a small moon screams a fiery path through the fume-filled atmosphere and bombs a mile-deep hole into the earth’s surface. A billion tons of pulverized rock fountain skywards and the explosion flings an ellipse of mountains around the crater.

The impact creates a hair-line fissure that zigzags down the continent, and the land immediately spews lava in a frantic effort to weld itself back together. Burning vegetation pours smoke into the thickening atmosphere, the stars vanish, and morning never comes. All grazing creatures starve and the predators follow them to a premature grave, insects eat their flesh until that, too, is gone, and there is no life left on the face of the earth.

For decades - maybe centuries – the world is in darkness. The fissure scabs over in time, and the crater, two hundred miles long and girded by mountains high enough to be ice-clad even in summer, is gradually filled by rain, snow-melt and glaciers until it becomes a vast inland sea, from which three rivers spill south. The dust-cloud settles, and in this deep layer of fertile soil long-dormant seeds crack open, and the earth shines with new green.

Eventually a few fish crawl out of the sea on muscular fins and the slow process of evolution re-starts, but when water seeps into the underground lava-flows, the impatient earth mixes it with minerals to create instant life. Before apes learn to walk upright, a race of rockmen has spread out to inhabit the lands divided by the three main rivers.

Near a tributary of the most easterly of those rivers stands a small mountain which, when viewed from the plain, resembles a recumbent giant. Half-way up its steep side, just where the giant’s mouth appears to be, is a cave.

CORPORAL

CLOUDS covered Mount Teide went I went for my morning walk – not surprising after that wild windy night. I'm a tad weary today, too - when leaves the size of a man’s hand CLASH together they tend to wake me up! 

But I must stick with my blog theme – my novel Helter-Skelter, which I am re-writing this month alongside the A-Z challenge.

CORPORAL Albert Smith and the pitiful remains of his squad were heading for the coast, a scant hour ahead of the enemy, when Albie, from his seat in the cab beside Private Thompson, saw the helter-skelter. 

It was far off to the right, blackened and smoking rather than clean red and white stripes, but the truncated-cone shape was unmistakable. He clutched Thompson’s arm; “Tommy! Look at that – I don’t bloody believe it!”

 These are the opening lines of H-S. It is 1940, and the British Army is racing to reach Dunkirk before the Germans. Chapter two returns to 1925 and follows Albie growing up - I will give you more snippets of his story as we go along.

FINISHED!

I've got there at last. Two months ago I embarked on yet another rewrite of
A Volcanic Race, the first book I ever wrote, and I have finished it! This is not the final version, of course, but the novel is now in much better shape - leaner and faster-paced.
I wish I could say the same about myself as I pack for two weeks in England, where I shall be trying to keep up with my two grandsons. Yes, I know the weather's bad, but I've been missing my family.

"WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW". This is sound advice, which I have chosen to ignore in A Volcanic Race. 
      I have never been to Africa, the continent on which I based some of my imaginary country. I have read books about it, seen National Geographic documentaries by the score, and made pages of research notes, but the nearest I have been is where I live now - Tenerife, a hundred miles off the west coast of Africa. We get the same searing heat in high summer, and some of the same plants, but the largest wild animal we have in Tenerife is the feral goat. So my imagination is free to roam.
Or so you would think.

The volcanic landscape of my adopted island inspired this novel, but despite my flights of fancy I have a strong streak of common sense which anchors me to logic. I created this imaginary country and its inhabitants, yet once I have taken that “What if?” leap into my fantasy world, within that framework I must remain consistent. It can be extremely annoying when I want a character to do something and my logical demon pops up saying “No – that won’t work.”
           But what can I do? One day my story - and the other books in the series - may reach a bookshop near you, and you'd be bound to notice if I made an error in logic, wouldn't you?

SUBMISSION

In the shower this morning I was thinking that I should put my list of submissions into some kind of order, and was wondering whether to sort them by date or alphabetically. Then while I was rinsing my hair, my mind wandered onto the definition of the word ‘submission’.

As writers we submit our manuscripts to agents and publishers and competitions, sending out work we have laboured over, sworn over, sweated blood over, to be judged by strangers. The word 'submission', like so many in the English language, has more than one meaning, some with unfortunate connotations.

I look it up in the dictionary: "Submission – the act of referring a document for consideration."
Yes, that’s what we do, I can live with that definition, thank you.
But of course my eye is drawn further down the page; "Submission – the act of being subject to another."
That is quite a different matter and I don't like that meaning at all, but when we get a rejection, that’s how it feels - someone else has the upper hand in our lives - not pleasant at all.

So, rather like probing a sore tooth, I go to the Thesaurus.:"To submit – to acquiesce, to capitulate, to throw in the sponge, to endure." It gets worse and worse and I am getting more depressed by the minute.

But hang on – this is better: "To submit – to advance, to assert, to propose." Okay - that's what I did two months ago, and although I am still waiting for an answer (with fading hopes) I shall remain positive. If that agent doesn't want my novel  I shall remain assertive and carry on submitting it, advancing it, proposing it - and the next agent will love it - or the next ,,,

RESEARCH

This is a downloaded image from my research into the first months of World War Two in France, showing that, dreadful as the whole war was, the British soldiers still found reasons to laugh.
I am on the last stretch of my major rewrite of Helter-Skelter, after which I can take a month off with a clear conscience to visit my family in UK and Canada. When I return to it at the end of October I shall print the whole thing off, read it, and edit anew.
These final chapters are the ones that entailed the most research, as they are set in France and Belgium in early 1940. There is a dearth of information about the Phoney War in the first months of 1940. In a way this is good because there are fewer details to get wrong, but it also means that I did a lot of guessing.
Now that I want to weave in another thread, I am having to refresh my memory about why I sent Albie to a particular place on that exact date (what a good thing I kept the relevant parts of my research!) and there was an unexpected bonus.
I revisited one of my former research sites and clicked on a hitherto un-noticed soldier's diary of the very place and time I wrote about. He mentioned a real incident I had already imagined two years ago, which proves I managed to get into the mind of my soldier. I can re-flesh the bones of my story knowing that the underlying structure is sound.
The moral of this is - never bin your notes!

BACK TO THE GRINDSTONE

Well, I've had my month off so now it's back to the novels. The A-Z challenge gave my mind a break from thinking about plots, and I can return to my books refreshed. At least, I hope so.
I have one character to make more of a hero - he's a bit wimpish at the moment and we can't have that. Also the book itself was the first one I wrote years ago and, after reading lots of advice, I can see other glaring errors that need fixing.
Another book needs tightening up after which an agent has said she will look at it again, which is more positive a response than I have had for a long time.
So if whether you started following my blog in April or earlier, please keep looking in but don't expect a post every day!

MAY DAY

Here in Tenerife, Labour Day is celebrated on the first of May whatever day of the week it falls on, so today is quiet. There is less traffic noise from the motorway and no sound of children going to school. Which is a pleasant change from last night, when some neighbours had a party till two in the morning. In a block of apartments with a central pool, every sound carries.
So with the A-Z Challenge over we have time to sip a cup of tea, eat an iced bun, and reflect on our next move. Today I am going to pick up my next sewing job and have lunch with a friend in Los Cristianos. Editing my 80,000 word novel begins this afternoon.
If you hear me shout "May Day!" you will all, naturally, rush to help!

ROCKS, RUINS & RBL

RUINED buildings have always fascinated me – they leave so much to the imagination. The holes in a castle wall where joists used to be conjure up images of floors and furniture, spiral stairs make me wonder how servants carried trays of food up to their masters. The skeleton of a shed in a French field was so striking that I took several photos and wrote it into a novel.

Until a firm of speculative builders scraped the surface from the former agricultural land around us, I could explore ROUGH-WALLED terraces and imagine the fields filled with potatoes or cabbages. There was a one-room house too – a ROOF-BEAM leaning against one wall and a tangle of herbs that was once a kitchen garden.

Overlooking the nearest banana plantation is a ROW of workers’ cottages, roofs and doors long gone and walls collapsed. Older locals remember when they were occupied by agricultural workers. If someone had bought them before the roofs fell in they could have made a lovely home with a grand view of the sea.

The builder’s ROADS are now as abandoned as those fields were, and are already going back to nature – I wonder what future generations will make of them?

ROUNDABOUTS

Tenerife has only had roundabouts for a few years. Before that, if you wanted to turn left you turned RIGHT, drove ROUND an island, and ended up having to cross traffic from both directions. The roads weren’t wide enough for feeder lanes.

Then the government discovered roundabouts and put them everywhere. Drivers who had lived on the island all their lives didn’t know what they were or how to use them. Each roundabout was soon strewn with glass, the number of cars with bashed-in doors increased, articles appeared in newspapers, and heated arguments RAGED in every café and bar. The Cabildo sent every household a letter explaining, with diagrams, how to drive round a roundabout. It appeared to have been written by someone who had only READ the theory.

And those striped triangular patches on the approach roads – the cross-hatching that indicates “Do not drive on this bit” – are considered a great place to park if you need to visit a nearby shop.

Things have settled down now, but any sensible driver avoids what the Brits call “The Magic Roundabout” in Los Cristianos. It has two lanes, which are always a RECIPE for disaster here - the local drivers regard the inner circle as an overtaking opportunity for those in a hurry. If you take the inside lane to turn left you could be stuck there all day, and if you opt for the outer circle you can practically guarantee that someone will carve you up by shooting across your bows to turn right.

And mini roundabouts? I saw a van yesterday approaching a mini-roundabout in Guaza from the wrong angle. Sensing danger, I waited. White van man overshot his left turn, slammed on his brakes, REVERSED practically onto my bonnet, and shot off up the road he’d been aiming for. You need to keep your wits about you, driving in Tenerife.

ROCKS

I had never really thought about rocks until we came to Tenerife, and was surprised by the different colours, textures and formations. Simply driving along the motorway, where the rock has been chipped away for cuttings, is a mobile lesson in how the layers of lava overlaid each other when the island was formed. There is rock so porous that bees can build hives in it, and rock so hard that a chipped edge is like a knife. There is blue rock and green rock, black and white rock layered like a cake, brown and red, yellow and orange, terracotta and cream.

No wonder my series of fantasy books is called “Living Rock”.

ROYAL BRITISH LEGION

We transferred our membership to the Tenerife branch of the Royal British Legion soon after we arrived. There were about 25 members then and, due to what is euphemistically called “natural wastage” we now number 17 – the youngsters don’t join, which is a shame.

For the past 5 years we have won the Noel Rogers Trophy for the overseas branch that raises the most Poppy Appeal money per member. Last year we got €11,000 and change – around €500 per member – our nearest rivals raised €44. Big is not always better! The photo was taken at Westhaven Bay in Costa del Silencio, where we hold our service, with (L-R) the British Ambassador to Spain, the OH who is Chairman. Paul our Vice-Chairman and Welfare Officer and his wife, and the previous Canary Islands Consul.

We exist mainly to deal with any welfare cases that come our way, which have ranged from the widow of an RAF pilot not being able to afford a new fridge to a young serviceman and his wife severely injured in a car accident and stuck in hospital for months. We also have a Remembrance Service each year, in the open air overlooking the sea, which is attended by about 350 people, some of whom book their annual holiday around that date. One year the crew of a Royal Navy vessel, in Santa Cruz on its way home from the Antarctic, joined us. That was a particularly emotional morning, the young sailors’ voices loud in the hymns and even louder later at the barbecue with karaoke!

NAVIDAD & NOVEL

NAVIDAD = Christmas. We spent our last two Christmases in England and they were the best we’ve had in the past twelve years. Christmas isn’t the same without family, especially our grandchildren.

The Tenerife shops display  decorations, gifts, and cards - the usual commercial glitz that you see in England - and we've got used to seeing them against the background of sunshine. Wearing thin summer         clothes, we push our trolley between aisles loaded with festive food.

Some families buy a leg of Jamon which sits in the kitchen for weeks covered only by a tea-cloth, to have slivers cut off for tapas or sandwiches. You can buy a leg for 30 euros but the best ones (with black hooves) can set you back 130 euros. 

Then there's Turron = a sweet sold in slabs mainly at Christmas. Most varieties contain almonds, and it can be hard like crunchy toffee or soft like nougat.  If you want traditional English food there are shops and restaurants that cater for that too, and people book early to have their Christmas dinner with entertainment in the sun.

The locals have their traditional family meal late on NOCHE BUENA – literally, GOOD NIGHT – which is Christmas Eve, and we’ve been lucky enough to be invited to a few homes. We have had Italian – strange to be eating pasta on Christmas Eve! – and twice we joined a family of good friends for their dinner of traditional Venezuelan food.

NATIVITY PLAY

One year my mother was here, and she and I went to the nearest church for Midnight Mass.

The churches here are lovely. Some are centuries old and dark, with the scent of candles, flowers, fabric and ancient prayers. Others, particularly in the south of Tenerife, are newer and brighter.

The doors of the church we attended were left open to the air of Noche Buena, and children ran in and out. Their mothers and grandmothers were inside the church, praying on behalf of the whole family, one assumes, but the fathers stayed in the square drinking beer - except when the Nativity Play was performed, when they buzzed around the church like paparazzi. One memory I treasure is of a girl who played the Virgin Mary. Her portrayal of a heavily pregnant woman was so realistic that the entire congregation was in hysterics.

NIGERIANS

Last December, just before we flew off to England, we were attracted to our village Cultural Centre by the sound of music. We found open-sided marquees full of Nigerians celebrating a national festival. Every single person was dressed in their best, in every imaginable colour and pattern, and the women in the most elaborate head-gear. I stopped a toddler from straying onto the road and found his mother – she bowed low several times with clasped hands to thank me. We wanted to stay and asked one man where we could buy a beer – he gave us four cans from his table and said, “It’s all free.” We had a wonderful time and the dancing was great. The next morning there was no sign that anything had happened – no marquees, not a scrap of litter – only our aching feet told us it hadn’t all been a dream.

NOVEL An agent asked for the whole manuscript of one of my novels a month ago. If she doesn’t get back to me soon with a decision I shall have NIBBLED my NAILS to NOTHING. 

NOT a good idea!

I thought I would save a bit of tree, and avoid the need to fill my shelves with huge files, by printing the second draft of my novel on two sides of the paper. After all, I was the only one going to read it. I like to do an in-depth edit on paper. Yes, I know it's stone-age but so am I. The trouble is that, if I decide to delete a chunk or add a paragraph or two, I have to re-print a page.
And that's where the problems start. I have to print two and a half pages just to replace one, then the pages don't match, so when I return to the computer I get lost and can't find which page to change, let alone which words. I can't do it all on screen because of poor eyesight anyway, and I write differently if I'm working directly onto a computer.
 Dammit - I can't even blog about it without getting muddled!
So from now on it's single-sided, double-spaced, and a big, fat lever-arch file, and the hell with it!

How I started writing

What starts us off on the writing road?
My spur was retiring from work and leaving the village where I had lived for 35 years. The shock to my system  was devastating.
Then my younger son asked, "How are you, Mum?" and I replied, "Bored."
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself and write a book," he said.
Well, I started small. I wrote 40 verses based on the family's dolls and memories. I illustrated each one, and made up copies for family and a few friends. It was a marathon which I completed just in time for Christmas.
And then I was bored again. And twitchy - weeks of working on the project had kicked the author into life and she wouldn't lie down. So I wrote my first novel.
That was some years ago, and I've not stopped since, but those verses were the start of it all.
Written so that my children would recognize their toys, and in the hope that my grandsons would enjoy reading the book.
Look on "My writing" page for a few examples.