Hearts in the sky and on the beach

Well, here we have Blog number two.  It's a bit like a second album for a band – it's harder than the first!  There are so many expectations...OK, I'm exaggerating a little bit, I know, but you understand what I mean...

As you can see from the photos I've added so far, hearts have an important part to play in my novel, Aphrodite's Child.  Both pictures were taken by me last time I was in Cyprus.

This one above, is a heart made by the Red Arrows above RAF Akrotiri.  They come out every April to practise their routines and they feature in my story.  The heart in the sky becomes a symbol in the novel...you'll have to wait to find out why.

It was pure coincidence that they happened to be practising last time we were on holiday.  I grabbed my camera and quickly took this shot - as you can imagine, the heart dissipates almost as soon as it's formed, so I had to act quickly.

When I lived on the camp at Akrotiri, I got quite blasé about seeing the Red Arrows – they did three routines every day above the married quarters.  Emily, the main character in my novel is so excited the first time she sees them.  Two planes form the heart and then a third flies through it like an arrow.  She's standing in her garden and the heart is right above her head.  It makes her think.

The other photo, in my first blog, is of pebble hearts.  If you ever visit Cyprus, no doubt one of the places you'll visit is Aphrodite's Rock, perhaps the most famous view on the island, in the picture below.

 This is where the Goddess Aphrodite rose from the waves and came ashore.  She was born as a fully formed adult.  Cronus cut off Uranus' genitals and threw them in the sea and Aphrodite rose from the foam that was formed.  Her name means 'she who shines from the foam'.

She is known as the Goddess of Love, Beauty and Procreation – her Roman equivalent is Venus.

This place is known as Petra Tou Romiou and lovers go there to swim in the waters around the rock.  It is said you may get pregnant there and also you may look ten years younger.  When we visited in April this year, I noticed that there are literally hundreds of pebble hearts on the beach and in the scrub land – hearts of all shapes and sizes.  Some lovers have climbed the rock and engraved hearts and initials on its surface.  There is also a tree festooned with materials where lovers make wishes.

 I'd written about half the story when it dawned on me how appropriate the myth of Aphrodite was.  The Goddess is almost synonymous with Cyprus – it was too good an opportunity to miss.  The myth of Aphrodite gave my story a focus and a title.

In the blurb on the back of my book, if my publishers allows me to have my own words, I will say that my book is 'a modern take on the myth of Aphrodite...' – you'll have to read it to find out why.

See you next time.

The musings of an unpublished novelist

Pebble hearts at Aphrodite's Rock, Petra Tou Romiou, Cyprus

I've been reading a lot about getting published and one thing everybody says is that you must have a blog.  So, here I am, blogging away...whether anyone will read this is unknown at the time of writing, but I'm going to do it anyway.

In my other life as a photographer, I have a blog on Wordpress - I'm not very good at posting new blogs on that.  What with my Facebook Page, my Twitter account, my photography website etc, there's a limit to how much time I've got - especially as I'm meant to be editing my novel.

I hope to be better at this one.

So - Welcome to my new blog - just to give you a little information about me and my novel.

My name is Sarah Knights - I've added the Catherine as it's my middle name - dur - but also as it distinguishes me from my other persona - Sarah Knights Photography.  This is the new me, the writer me.  I like this new me - it's the me I've wanted to be since I was young but never achieved.  So Sarah Catherine Knights is my Author name.  I'm just coming to the end of an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and it's because of this that I've written my first novel, Aphrodite's Child.  On September 30th, we hand in the final big piece of writing - 40,000 words.

To be honest, I'm happy just to have done the course - as long as I pass, I don't mind what mark I get.  I've got merits for everything so far, so I should be OK.  Anybody who says you can't learn to write, is wrong.  I was a bit sceptical before I started - I thought I could write well.  But the thing is, I didn't know anything about constructing a novel, how to write dialogue, how to describe people etc and that's what you learn on a course like that.  I would recommend it to anyone wanting to write.

I was nervous about people reading what I'd written - I'd never shown anyone my poor attempts at creative writing in the past so having to sit there while people discussed my work was torture at first -but it soon changed.  I got so much from the discussions, I began to look forward to them.  It was sometimes hard when they criticised a piece I thought was good or said something rude about one of my characters, but I had to develop a thicker skin and understand that you can't please everyone all the time.

So - what's the novel about?  It's set in Cyprus on a military camp and follows the life of Emily Blackwell.  She has to go and live there for three years as her husband, Luke, is posted there as an RAF Officer.

This also happened to me - I went to Cyprus in the nineties with my husband and three children.  I kept thinking that there was a story to be told and when we got back to the UK, I started writing, but only got a few chapters written.  Then - life got in the way and it was left mouldering in a drawer.

When I got onto the course at Bath Spa, I remembered those chapters and dragged them out.  They've now turned into 130,000 words and I've completed the first draft.  Those first few chapters have changed beyond recognition and the whole concept developed while I was writing.  I've always thought that when people say their characters take over the plot, they must be making it up - but it happened to me.  The plot kept changing and surprising me.  It started off all those years ago based on me - because that was the easiest thing to do, but I was taught to distance myself from Emily and now it's not about me at all.

Obviously, I've borrowed things from my own experience there, but the story is about someone searching for herself and encountering triumphs and tragedies - my life there was a lot less interesting!

I think I'll leave this first blog there, otherwise I won't have anything to say in the next...

If you've enjoyed my musings, please leave a comment - a nice one, hopefully.

See you next time.