Month: Nov 2015

About Switzerland, About writing

Good news about my Swiss book deal

by clareodea28 Comments on Good news about my Swiss book deal

2015 First batch 418

I am delighted to announce that I have signed a book deal with Swiss publisher Bergli Books for a non-fiction book about Switzerland. I believe this country is hopelessly misunderstood and a little unloved. Armed only with a cheap laptop, I intend to stress-test the stereotypes, and change the narrative about Switzerland.

People always say you should write the book only you could write. That’s what I’m doing now. I came to Switzerland in 2003 on the love train (actually an Aer Lingus flight to Geneva). Since then I have experienced the country on many levels – as an immigrant, a journalist, a foreign spouse, and mother of three Swiss children.

Churchill famously said that Russia was a riddle, inside a mystery, wrapped in an enigma. At times Switzerland has felt like that to me too. But over the past decade of covering Swiss news for swissinfo.ch, and navigating everyday life, I feel I have stripped away the layers and got closer to understanding the Swiss soul. I’m ready to share the good and the bad about the Swiss.

This book will introduce readers to the real face of Switzerland, from presidents to poets, from bankers to street sweepers. At the same time it will paint a faithful picture of the political, cultural, economic and historic landscape.

Recently I wrote about rejection on this blog because it was becoming my specialized subject. I was getting used to it. In fact I was even getting good at it. After all that I can’t tell you how good it feels to take this long-awaited step towards being an author.

The title of the book has yet to be confirmed. The release date is also still being worked out by teams of experts (well maybe one small team), but I’m expecting it to be sooner rather than later. In the meantime I have a lot of work to do and will keep you posted on progress.

I’ll leave you with one small interesting fact. Bergli Books is an imprint of the Swiss publisher Schwabe, which was established in Basel in 1488, making it the oldest publishing house in the world.

About writing, Journalism, The everyday

Hot House Novel Part II

by clareodea6 Comments on Hot House Novel Part II
November rose
November rose

Seventeen thousand words in eighteen days. I’m pretty happy with the result of my October writing challenge. I didn’t manage to get to the end of the first draft but at least the end is now in sight.

In case you missed the previous post about this, I had half a children’s novel on my hands that I couldn’t seem to finish. Inspired by the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) buzz on Twitter, I decided to tackle the problem with an intensive burst of writing, ahead of the November pack.

There was a small lull in the middle when I went to Germany for the weekend and discovered that my two-prong Swiss plug would not fit into the three-prong German socket. That was the end of writing on the laptop so I tried writing longhand and produced a rather scribbled chapter.

Lots of writers swear by this method, especially for first drafts, but I couldn’t wait to get back to the keyboard where the words stand out crisp and even on the screen and you have the magic of deleting.

All being well I’ll finish the first draft this week and move on to other things.

I never do any correcting or revising while in the process of writing. Let’s say I write a thing out any old way, and then, after it’s cooled off—I let it rest for a while, a month or two maybe—I see it with a fresh eye. Then I have a wonderful time of it. I just go to work on it with the ax. But not always. Sometimes it comes out almost like I wanted it.

That’s a quote from Henry Miller taken from a 1961 interview in The Paris Review, which I came across during the week. While I had to raise an eyebrow at Miller referring to “the writer” by definition as a man, I did find his thoughts on our lack of moral code interesting. At a time when Europe is turning a blind eye, or worse, to distressed refugees at its borders, his words seem to sum things up perfectly.

You see, civilized peoples don’t live according to moral codes or principles of any kind. We speak about them, we pay lip service to them, but nobody believes in them. Nobody practices these rules, they have no place in our lives.

On the subject of refugees, this is the best piece of journalism I’ve read about the crisis so far, by AA Gill. Simply devastating.

Above is a picture of a rose taken yesterday. It cheered me to see something beautiful surviving in a hostile environment – a bit like the kindness being shown by some individuals in Europe.