Posts by sandra
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Started with Christie when I was about 12 - as I recall my mother was reading them from the library and I just picked one up. Why do I always feel so guilty when I tell people that my main reading is crime fiction/thrillers?
On to Marsh and Sayers, both enjoyed, and then in a blaze of light one day in early 80s London I discovered Margery Allingham (1904-66) - her books were being reissued. Albert Campion is very much in the style of Lord Peter Wimsey, although we never learn Campion's true name and only hear hints about his connections (very close) to the aristocracy. His 'manservant' Magersfontein Lugg (great name for a great character) is a bit of an Eeyore but knows what to do when needed.
Pick up any one and enjoy it - they're not terribly long, but for me one of the apex books in the collection is 'Tiger in the Smoke' (published in 1952), which has a real psychological element to it and features the inestimable Inspector Stanislaus Oates.
The other 'old' writer I greatly enjoy is Ed McBain and still haunt charity book fairs to pick up one or two (if I'm lucky). I stick to the 87th Precinct novels and am well rewarded. I recently shouted myself a new copy of 'Lady Killer' (1958), which includes a 1994 Introduction by McBain (1926-2005). If you'll bear with me I'll reproduce some of it here because it tells us a few things about him and about his writing.
The book was written in 9 days in the summer of 1957!
"The 87th Precinct novels were still paperback originals in those days and that was the required length - 180 pages. Not a page more, not a page less. If they'd been as long as today's 87th Precinct novels, which run some 400 to 450 pages in manuscript, I'd have been in that damn garage all summer.
"Twenty pages a day was not unusual for me back then. This output diminished over the years to ten pages a day, and eventually to eight pages a day. Critics seem to believe that fast is lousy. That's because it takes them a week and a half to write a 400-word book review praising a novel somebody took seventeen years to write. The odd thing about 'Lady Killer' is that it is no better and no worse than any of the 87th Precinct novels over which I labored [sic] longer. This may mean that all of them are lousy."
After some chat about how hard it is to write with your own kids underfoot and then another family turns up to stay and the kids catch a shark...
"Because I was driven by a singular need to get onto the beach as soon as possible, the book itself is driven by a single plot. It's a no-frills book. You jump right into it, you move right along with it, you let it take you where it wants to go. And because it was written fast it seems to _move_ fast. The ticking twelve-hour clock in the book seems to echo the urgency of the deadline I'd set for myself. Nine days. Twenty pages a day. Clocks are ticking and the cotton is high."
And then: "It took more time to get the stench of that damn shark out of my kitchen than it did to write this book."
Because of the 180-page limit McBain (who also wrote as Evan Hunter, his legal name though not his birth name) often published more than one book a year - 2 in 1952, 3 each in 1953 and '54 - and six in 1956! This was how he made his living.
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And since it's almost Christmas - here's the angel from the top of my family's tree (not my one here in Tauranga you understand, but the tree on the farm). The poor thing is a bit battered but she's not looking bad for her age, which is almost the same as mine. Every year she comes out of her box which informs us that her life was intended to be as a cake decoration but somehow she ended up on top of a Christmas tree ... something like 58 years so far! If my Mum, now gone, knew we were coming for Christmas the tree decorating waited for us. I so enjoy opening the box and picking up this silly little plastic thing with her stained skirt and handing her to someone taller than me to fix to the top of the tree. Tears in my eyes as I write. Both my parents gone now so I don't know whether she'll see the light of day this year as we're up here for Christmas and my brother's on his own and may not even have a tree. I'll be thinking of her though.
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Capture: A Place to Stand, in reply to Hebe,
The after-effects of the Canterbury quakes are going to be felt for a long time. The fact that a great many people have stayed and endured says a great deal, not only about those people but also about the place.
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What I haven’t yet shared with you is just a little further away from home – Katikati is 30 minutes drive to the north and the site of the Haiku Pathway, the largest collection of engraved boulders outside Japan and, until very recently, the only one outside Japan. Read more http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/node/279, and yes I’m on the committee! Anyway, here are some shots.
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Capture: A Place to Stand, in reply to Shaun Scott,
Thanks, Shaun. Whew! I thought I was the only one who enjoyed visiting cemeteries - I specially like old, country places.
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Oddly enough, another one of my favourite places to be - near my childhood home and where my great-great grandparents rest.
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One of our favourite places to walk - there again at the weekend. Different every time we go.
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Capture: A Place to Stand, in reply to John Farrell,
In response to the idea that taking shots on a cloudy day is better - it is! I photograph a lot of plant life and the colours of flowers are a touch more vibrant on a cloudy day and you don't get the whites "blasting out" or problematic shadows.
You can compensate for any perceived lack of contrast when processing the pix on your computer. Just bump the contrast button up a bit and the vibrancy (usually) pops back in.
If you find yourself in a situation where there is bright sunshine and deep shadow in the same shot you can always force your flash to try and brighten the shade without blasting the bright area. Takes a bit of practise.
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Summer on the farm - flowering grass and little blue butterflies (not in shot).
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And finally, my backyard.
