I haven't finished it yet. We had a birthday party for my dad last night - 75th!! - and my husband and I spent the day cooking. Needless to say, that took precedent, but I am back at it. It will be done before Kate leaves us. LOL I already have friends and family either ordering the book or waiting for mine.
Bethanne wrote:
DSaff wrote:Kate, welcome back to B&N! I read The House At Riverton with the First Look group and loved it. My copy of The Forgotten Garden arrived on Tuesday and has already grabbed me. While I am involved in the newest FL group, I am also planning to read your book this weekend. It will be good to have you on Center Stage!
DSaff, did you finish? I could not stop reading The Forgotten Garden....Cheers,Bethanne
KathyS wrote:Hello Kate, nice to see you too!
I sincerely hope I don't overwhelm you right off the bat! It's rare I find an author who writes the way you do. It's deep and beautiful. You've brought me to tears more often than not.
I'm only about 159 pages into the book, and I don't think I'll have it finished by the time you leave. I'm not reading it fast. But I would like to try to give you my impressions, up to this point. And ask you a few questions, if that's okay?
Thinking about the end papers, I can't look at them enough. I mean literally! This illustration is so much a part of this story, it belongs to Eliza Makepeace.
The cover has the feel of the story, with muted colors, the golden tones of autum. I keep looking at it, as if it's telling me something about this story - the mystery that surrounds it! Have you every seen a sunset, where even the air changes color? It's heavy, and you feel as if you could almost slice it with a knife. There are no real hard edges to objects. I've only witnessed this about twice in my life, where everything turns shades of sepia. It gives you an erie feeling when you witness this. This is what this jacket says to me...secrets and questions.
Your title, the Forgotten Garden, the word, the, is not capitalized. As I'm not very far along in the book, I keep wondering about the title. The word Forgotten, it's almost as if it refers to the characters. They've been left behind and alone. And the Garden seems to be a word that refers to something that could be beautiful. These people in your story feel like the Forgotten Garden. I'm sorry if I'm too analytical, it's just how I read.
I'm not certain how to phrase this. As you change the characters, with the chapters and periods in time, you have nailed the voice! I feel each character as real, and different of the next. The English language they speak, changes, as well. It's amazing. You obviously have an ear for language!
I know you must slip into these characters as you write them, but did you write each chapter as the story unfolds to us, the reader, or did you write each character independently, and then tie it all together? Does that make sense?
Okay, that's enough for now. I would have served you up a cuppa as you read this, but it's a little hard to get it through my monitor.
Thank you for your time!
Kathy
KateMorton wrote:
Hi there Kathy,It's great to be back and to see another friendly face from First Look :-) I hope you're still enjoying the hefty TFG--I couldn't agree more about the jacket. I absolutely love it. The Arthur Rackham illustrations on the end papers take my breath away--they're straight out of my child self's fantasy of fairyland. Looking forward to chatting further when you've finished.
DSaff wrote:I haven't finished it yet. We had a birthday party for my dad last night - 75th!! - and my husband and I spent the day cooking. Needless to say, that took precedent, but I am back at it. It will be done before Kate leaves us. LOL I already have friends and family either ordering the book or waiting for mine.
Bethanne wrote:
DSaff wrote:Kate, welcome back to B&N! I read The House At Riverton with the First Look group and loved it. My copy of The Forgotten Garden arrived on Tuesday and has already grabbed me. While I am involved in the newest FL group, I am also planning to read your book this weekend. It will be good to have you on Center Stage!
DSaff, did you finish? I could not stop reading The Forgotten Garden....Cheers,Bethanne
Bethanne wrote:
KathyS wrote:Hello, again, Kate! Welcome back!
I, too, was with the FL discussion group, The House At Riverton. I fell in love with your writing, and couldn't wait to receive the Forgotten Garden, which finally came this week. I've been reading it every chance I can get. It's a hefty one! I love big books!
I'm loving all of it, thus far, although I can't get the ache out of my throat! Your story, your writing, the jacket design - Bravo to your design department, it is all beautiful!
Much success, Kate!
Kathy S.
Kathy, isn't the design beautiful? I hope jacket design never goes away. I love ebooks, but I really want book jackets to continue. They add a great deal to the reading experience for me.Bethanne
Hi, Bethanne!
I hope this design never goes away, either! But it's inevitable, that it will. We've had some discussion on this topic, on other boards. Time changes everything, even book jackets. I keep thinking about authors who are no longer living, but their books continue to be published, and what they would think of these changing covers? Only the stories are mortal. So, really, how important is a jacket/book design?
I'm not into reading anything but what has pages I can smell, and feel between my fingers, and turn. I want to be able to turn them back in time, stick my thumb between these pages, if I choose.
Kathy
HannahDL wrote:
The House at Riverton was one of the best novels I've ever read. As soon as I finished, I found out about The Forgotten Garden..and went to a UK website to order it. I couldn't wait for it to be published in the United States! It was worth every penny. Rarely do I re-read a book--but I will be re-reading both of these books as soon as I can get them back from my daughter! I am anxiously awaiting the next novel--and I truly hope that both will be picked up as movies.
Kate,
Not many authors have the time to explore with their readers, what you give to these questions of mine. And, I thank you. I sometimes feel as though I'm taking you away from something. (like your next book, which I'm soooo looking forward to!) I've never asked another author, what I'm asking you.
Yes, you answered my questions. I see that you explore these situations you create, and stretching yourself, emotionally - even though you haven't lived them, you can imagine them. And you do it expertly.
What I write, I have lived these emotions through, that's the hard part, from related experiences. I do slip into these scenes with music, at times. I understand that. I do know that music reflects emotions you can't express, at times, unless you write about it as you feel it. Then, for me, to pull away from those emotions, makes is difficult.
I haven't read as far as the Cassandra incident. But I know the feeling of loss. I guess, the real issue is writing what you know will become truth. I know the tears on the keyboard! No, you are not sick!
I had asked an author friend of mine something about writing...I can't think of the question at the moment, probably, "do you have characters talking to themselves in your head"....but her reply was: "All writers are a little crazy!"
When I'm driving down the road, I have scenes working themselves out...I have characters start talking to each other...now, is that sick, or what? LOL
Thanks, again, Kate,
Kathy
KateMorton wrote:
Answering your questions is a great pleasure. I'm thrilled to think that not only have you read my books and brought their worlds to life in your own imagination, but that you care enough to want to discuss them further. So thank you!As to your question--writing difficult emotional colours--I think there's a part of me (as perhaps there is in all writers) that seeks to describe emotions and events that I haven't known personally, especially those that frighten or worry or fascinate me. For instance, (SPOILER ALERT for readers who haven't yet learned Cassandra's secret regarding the terrible event that occurred ten years before the book's action begins), when I first conceived the scene in which Cassandra's son and husband are killed, I was writing about my own worst fear (my son was the same age when I wrote the scene). It wasn't a pleasant scene to write, but it had a truth because I was writing from a place in my own heart, and there's a certain satisfaction in writing a scene with an emotional truth, even if it means crying until my keyboard is soaked! (I hope that doesn't sound too sick?!?)Music is often a great help to me in capturing a mood or emotion that I can't draw exclusively from my own experience. I often make a playlist and wear headphones while I'm working so I'm completely enveloped by the right mood. When I was writing Eliza, for example, I listened to a lot of Irish music. There was something about the yearning and beauty and pace of the music that seemed to match with her wildness and freedom.There are certain things I wouldn't write about though. I wouldn't be able to write a sympathetic scene from the point of view of a child rapist, for instance, because that's a place I don't want to go in my mind.I hope this answers your question? Let me know if it doesn't and I'll give it another go.
KathyS wrote:Kate,
I've appreciated your responses to my, and everyone's, questions. The one thing I remember from our discussions on The House at Riverton, was the consideration you paid to everyone. I thank you for this.
You couldn't have answered my questions any better. I do picture you spreading your pages out on the floor! I have one more question, though, that more or less accompanies my previous one, about how you tied your characters together. And please forgive me for my personal indulgence? Since I can't talk about TFG, as a whole story [at this point in time], I would like to ask you about your writing.
I'm in the process of writing a story, which is along similar lines, taking characters back and forth in history. Not the amount of history as you've covered, just in a span of a lifetime. But, as I created situations from past moments in history, I am now having to take a character back to that past, trying to re-create it in her mind, situations she's wanted to forget. But I'm stuck, in that I have to get back into that character's mind-set, and I, personally, find it a very difficult emotional challenge.
My question to you is: Did you ever find yourself in these moments where the scene you wrote these characters into, put you in such an emotional frame of mind, that you found them hard to write? Did you ever question yourself, or want to take a break, or even whether you wanted to continue this story? I can feel you invest a lot in your writing.
Your characters, as I've read so far, do have really tuff places they have to live through. One in particular is, the scene where Eliza and her brother are playing in the fog, then become separated. I felt what was going to happen. Eliza then sees him lying on the ground. Her decision making was heartbreaking.
I think I presented more than one question. Please feel free to not answer these.
Kathy
KathyS wrote:
I had asked an author friend of mine something about writing...I can't think of the question at the moment, probably, "do you have characters talking to themselves in your head"....but her reply was: "All writers are a little crazy!"
When I'm driving down the road, I have scenes working themselves out...I have characters start talking to each other...now, is that sick, or what? LOL
Thanks, again, Kate,
Kathy
