November Reading and Writing Plans

November has always been my least favourite month – it feels way too long, too gloomy, cold and drizzly, and nothing to look forward to at the end of it. So I’ve crammed my schedule full of good reading and writing challenges, smaller and bigger events to cheer me up. And, lucky you, you’re going to hear all about those now!

First, the month started with a very good piece of news, that my arthritis is not of the rheumatoid persuasion, but just of the bog-standard osteo kind. So I’ll keep on doing my exercises, losing weight, keeping my joints warm and perhaps plan a wonderful spa treatment in Romania over Easter to keep myself going. I think both my writing and my hip would feel happy in a place like the Herculean Spa (Baile Herculane), discovered by the Romans (of course), built up a lot by the Austro-Hungarians (and sadly the 1970s Communists) and providing world-class balneotherapy. I can just see myself rereading The Magic Mountain, wandering down the shabby but still beautiful old part of town and composing melancholy poetry in the vein of Hölderlin – and emerging with brand-new joints! [And this is just one of many such spa towns in Romania]

Reading

But onto the more serious business of reading! November is not short on challenges. My favourite of them all is German Literature Month, now in its unbelievable 13th year, hosted by Lizzy Siddal. I heartily approve of her focus on Austrian literature this year, and that will be my main focus too, but I also intend to read this fascinating portrait of Berlin in 1930 in Gabriele Tergit’s Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm (Käsebier conquers the Kurfürstendamm). The Austrians Marlen Haushofer, Hilde Spiel and Ernst Lothar complete my selection.

Another great challenge is Novellas in November (#NovNov), hosted by Cathy and Rebecca . I have several books in mind, one of which also fulfills the criteria for German Lit Month: Hilde Spiel’s Mirko and Franca is just 131 pages long. I have already read Marlen Haushofer’s We Kill Stella for a previous #NovNov, and unfortunately an English translation is not available – I am DYING to translate it myself, if only I could get information about the copyright situation – here is my enthusiastic review of it. Other novellas I have planned are: Vladimir Sorokin’s fearsome satire Day of the Oprichnik (189 pages), Tatiana Țîbuleac’s The Summer When Mum Had Green Eyes (120 pages), Irina Anghel’s The Beggars’ Banquet (189 pages). Only the first of these has been translated, but I am reading the other two in the hope of pitching them to publishers. I’ve already put a pack together for Alina Nelega’s stunning reimagining of Hamlet Cloud in Shape Like a Camel, but at around 220 pages, it is slightly too long to be considered a novella for November.

With all of this reading, translating samples and putting together pitch packs, I won’t have time to take part in the Beryl Bainbridge or Margaret Atwood readalongs hosted by Annabel and Marcie respectively, unfortunately, but that shouldn’t stop you from discovering these brilliant writers. I may have a bit too much personal history with Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale myself, but I’ve loved Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and would like to remind you that The Penelopiad is also of novella length. As for Beryl Bainbridge, she is a wonderfully subtle and dark writer, a bit in the Shirley Jackson style but more British, and you can’t go wrong with The Bottle Factory Outing, Harriet Said or An Awfully Big Adventure. Actually, now that I look at her list of works, I have a craving to reread Sweet William. Of course, it’s only available in the reserve stock in the basement of our local library – which means they are about ready to throw it out unless someone borrows it this year.

Last but not least, I might be a little naughty and consider Paula Erizanu’s Burning Forests as a non-fiction book for the Non-fiction November challenge hosted by Liz, Frances, Heather, Rebekah and Lisa. Although it clearly says ‘novel’ on the cover, it is about the lives of Alexandra Kollontai and Inessa Armand, two of the leading lights of the 1917 Russian Revolution. If I can’t quite justify its non-fiction credentials, at least it fits into the novella criteria at just over 160 pages.

Writing

I participated twice in #NaNoWriMo, that crazy challenge to complete 50,000 words, enough for a rough first draft of a novel, in November. That means on average over 1700 words per day. The first time I attempted it was in 2010, when the children were still quite small, so it’s a small miracle I was successful, although I am still working on that novel and it still hasn’t seen the light of day (I’ve sent it to a few competitions but it’s not even reached the shortlist). The second time I attempted it I think was in 2016, and I failed miserably, partly because I was travelling so much with work and also resettling the boys back in the UK and initiating divorce proceedings. So this year I’m going to do a very small PerChWriMo (Personal Challenge Writing Month), in which I attempt a minimum of 100 words a day, preferably on either my poetry or my novel, just to get into a regular writing habit. I won’t consider it a failure if I just do some journaling occasionally either, but hopefully not every day!

And of course I also have some translating to do. In addition to the samples that I mentioned above (all unpaid for, since I’m trying to pitch them to publishers rather than being commissioned by them), I will also be translating our latest Corylus acquisition Nightingale & Co – The Mysterious Client, set in Berlin in 1961. Will I master the Berlin slang of that time period? We’ll have to wait and see, but it will certainly take me more than a month to translate all 420 pages of it! Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Well, in an ideal world, I’d have liked to co-translate it with someone, but since it’s unlikely that we will get any translation funding for it, it looks like it will be just me! Which is why I’m treating myself to a long weekend at Gladstone’s Library in Wales. I hope the peaceful, bookish location will inspire and reward me for all the hard work.

Now let’s just hope that no storms, flooding or illnesses (or, on a happier note, a new cat) will prevent my trip!