the diary

3.12.2011

I have now finished the seventh draft of the book. It's gone to David Fickling Books for a reading.

27.3.2010

I have now finished the first draft of the book! It's time to send it out to readers to get some feedback.

3.3.2010

Well I've caught up with myself and got to the point I was at nearly a month ago and then about another 5000 words beyond. Fortunately not all of the photographs were lost. I'd also miraculously backed up an earlier draft of this website.

06.02.2010

I have had a terrible catastrophe and lost much of my novel.

About 13,000 words have gone, plus a load of photographs (like the one on the right that shows how close to overflowing the dyke banks the river Leri is at high tide) I took while exploring locations for making this website.

I have been writing on my Apple Macbook and the hard drive has failed. Apparently this is a known issue, but nobody told me.

I took the laptop to the Apple Genius Bar in Birmingham and they gave me a new hard drive and the old hard right back. I thought I would be able to reclaim my work.

I took the old hard drive to a local computer man who put it in a caddie and try to get it working. Day made a clicking noise. He tried to get it going for an hour but couldn't do it.

So the next day I took it down to a data reclamation company in South Wales that specialises in police forensic work. He that they would have been able to reclaim the data if it hadn't been scratched so badly by the guy I saw the previous day.

There is a moral there and I now have my drive backed up constantly automatically on an external hard drive.

I am very depressed at the thought of having to rewrite 13,000 words.

02.02.2010

Owain Glyndwr

I've just found out that the area where my characters hide out was also the site of a major battle - the Battle of Mynydd Hyddgen - in 1401 featuring Owain Glyndwr, the great Welsh rebel. You can read about it on the BBC mid-Wales site and here.

Supporters of Glyndwr's legacy want to stop a wind-farm being built there by Scottish Southern and Electric. As this would help the fight against climate change this is a tough one for me not to support.

Mike Bailey

This morning I went to visit Mike Bailey, Countryside Council for Wales (CCW)'s Senior Reserve Manager at Dyfi National Nature Reserve at Ynyslas, and we discussed the latest research on the prospects of sealevel rise for Borth, Cors Fochno (Borth Bog) and the Dyfi estuary.

The early history of the area

10,000 years ago two glaciers met at the mouth of the Dyfi: one came down the coast and the other came down the river valley. Where they met they dumped some glacial material, and over the years this was turned into sand, the sand dunes, and the flood plain.

The petrified forest

Around 5000 years ago the area was forested, and at low tide tree stumps can be seen along the coast and up the south side of the estuary. Then the sea level began to rise and the trees couldn't grow any more.

The obvious existence of this forest is one factor that could have given rise to the legend of Cantre'r Gwaelod.

Origin of Cantre'r Gwaelod myth

Another factor is that core samples have been taken and show that about 1000 years ago there is a layer of clay particularly on the north side of the bog. This tends to suggest that at that time there was a rise in sea level and the land was flooded by the sea. Later the marsh - peat - was able to reassert itself.

There could have been earlier sea defences at this point which were breached, and this may have given rise to the legend of Cantre'r Gwaelod, according to Mike Bailey.

From 1820 the lower estuary used to flood often.

From 1914 onwards the Dyfi estuary began to silt up which meant that Derwenlas could no longer be used as a port. This was because of the introduction of Spartina alterniflora (Smooth Cordgrass or Saltmarsh Cordgrass), a perennial deciduous grass which is found in intertidal wetlands, especially estuarine salt marshes. It was introduced by farmers wishing to extend the arable and in the flood plain because it encourages the formation of silt.

Borth

Borth itself is built on a slightly higher strip of land, an isthmus that extends north from a promontory. the long straight Road which is its high Street, and only street, is just three metres above high tide level.

There is an additional sea defence of a wall, but this itself is only another couple of metres tall.

The houses on the seafront are used to occasional storm surges which passed through the ground floor or around the houses where there are gaps in the terrace. These push stones into the road.

Afon Leri

Up until the 1960s, farmers were still trying to extend arable land into the flood plain. In the 1960s the (tidal) Leri was turned into a dyke a certain distance down the river. It used to empty into the sea next to Borth.

Subsequently the flood bank was extended all the way to its present place.

The bank is made of peat. In dry periods this dries and shrinks and cracks creating gaps. If it gets wet gradually it expands again to fill the cracks. But if a storm surge, or a violent storm happens at this time, the bank is likely to be breached.

This happened in 1997 and sea water breached through a gap just beyond the railway bridge on the north side of the bog. It flooded over that side, over the road, and the dwelling on the other side of the road. It was repaired with imported material, not peat.

The railway line

The railway line which passes down the estuary south side and then along the coast behind Borth, effectively forming the West boundary of the bog, is also de facto a sea defence, although Railtrack would not like to accept that as a responsibility. Being composed of peat as well, it is not the ideal material for this purpose.

The bog is highest in the centre, like a dome, and lower round the edges where drainage has caused it to dry out. It may be 5-7 m high above sea level. At the bottom it might be salty due to insurgence of the seawater, but we don't know.

The latest research

Mike Bailey showed me the latest research. As we stood in his office, which is on the first floor of the visitor centre at Guinness less nature reserve, we looked out of his window and could see that it was high tide. The entire estuary was flooded and looked dangerously near to his little isolated office in a timber frame building. He did confess to feeling vulnerable at times. "This is not a permanent buildings," he said.

I am not yet permitted to publicise the results of the research, but in summary it does say that under certain circumstances to do with one in 100 year conditions, the scenario described at the beginning of Stormteller, called quite conceivably occur.

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18.01.2010

Murals, myths and Mid-Wales

I'm hard at work writing Stormteller, and it's when you're deeply immersed in something that coincidences start to happen.

I was going to Borth (the village I drown in the book), and pulled up at random, by the sea front. I'd always known there were mosaics embedded in the wall at one point, but finding myself parked right beside them I took a closer look.

They depict two myths I am using in Stormteller. Here they are:

This is a mosaic by Pod Clare of the Cantre'r Gwaelod myth in Borth, Ceredigion, Wales.

The myth tells of the drowning of Cardigan Bay when a prince meant to be keeping guard over the floodgates falls asleep, drunk on the job. On the right you can see the water flooding in to cover the land.

This depicts the origin of Taliesin, and shows him being discovered floating in the reeds after his birth, by Elffin, the son of King Gwyddno Garanhir, 'Lord of Ceredigion', while fishing for salmon.

As soon as he was found he announced that he was a poet, and began spouting poetry. The prince called him Shining Brow, which means Talisein, or blessed (radiant) one.

Round the edge you can see the chase, when Ceridwen tried to kill him because he stole the special wisdom-bestowing broth meant for her ugly son, Avagddu.

Using his new magical powers, Gwion, as he was then, turned himself into a hare, fish, bird and grain of corn.

In turn, Ceridwen transformed into a greyhound, otter, hawk and hen, and pecked at the grain until she had swallowed Gwion.

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07.01.2010

Ideas behind Stormteller

A note on the context of the writing of Stormteller, and the philosophical approach I'm taking to conceiving and writing the book.

It touches on the theme of how 'nature' is a human cultural construct - cf Simon Schama's brilliant book Landscape and Memory.

The two main characters in epitomise opposing attitudes to 'nature':

• as a place in which you must survive, and therefore understand and know how to use, and
• as an unknown out-there-ness.

Climate change in my book presents a crisis that suggests to the reader that enduring, but changing, nature puts the brief period of  human 'civilisation' in its tiny context.

The book does this partly by using Welsh mythology and updating it.

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30.12.09

Stormteller has begun

Earlier this year I won a grant [scroll down from this link to the item] from Powys' Chance to Create to write a novel for older children called Stormteller. One of the grant conditions was the production of a diary to document the writing of the novel. Now I have begun to write it this is a fine time to start.

Progress

I have so far:

• researched all of the mythological elements I wish to use
• walked in most of the areas where the story is set - but will need to revisit some during the writing
• done some research on the flora and fauna - need to do a little more
• conducted most of the research on the science of climate change and sea level rise; sources include articles in the New Scientist; Ranyl Rhydwen, a lecturer on climate science at CAT; a study of the Dyfi Valley coastline (near Borth) by a German researcher/Ceredigion Council; and Bill Thompson of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• need to in particular find out more about the Eastern Greenland coast and the behaviour of melting ice sheets there
• I have worked on the characters, learnt some Welsh, and plotted the novel out on scene (index) cards
• begun to write it (a week ago) - 2000 words completed. Projected length: 40,000 words, maybe less, mixed media format

More to follow. Offers of help (research information) welcome.