I swear I made you up - Apology to Vellanoweth, by Roz Morris
It’s a funny thing, releasing a novel. You think you’ve made everything up, then someone informs you that it’s not as fictional as you’d hoped. And moreover, you got it wrong. 
Th
e other day I had an email to say that the fusty village where I’d set the action in My Memories of a Future Life was not spelled Vellonoweth but Vellanoweth.
e other day I had an email to say that the fusty village where I’d set the action in My Memories of a Future Life was not spelled Vellonoweth but Vellanoweth.
‘No it’s not,’ I replied, thinking my correspondent had a cheek. ‘I made it up.’
‘It’s near Penzance,’ he said.
Oh dear. It was.
I honestly had no idea the place existed. My Vellonoweth, with an o, was inspired by a stand-out surname I spotted in a magazine. It embodied everything I needed for my setting - a fusty, sleepy hell full of dreary people. If I used a real town I couldn’t take it to the stifling depths I needed.
But it turns out there is a real Vellanoweth. So I may have some apologisi
ng to do. Here it is.
ng to do. Here it is. - 1 I’m sorry I gave you a terrible amateur dramatics society, which was performing a musical they’d written themselves about a lost hat.
- 2 I’m sorry I gave you so many atrocious singers and musicians and I’m sorry my narrator didn’t find that endearing.
- 3 I’m sorry your only watering hole was the Havishamesque and immense Railway Hotel with its curry-coloured carpets and paintwork like melted royal icing. In earlier drafts it was much worse so I’ve spared you a lot.
- 4 I’m sorry I gave you a dismal 1950s high street with concrete shoebox buildings.
- 5 I’m sorry I made it rain most of the time, which made the precinct even more depressing.
- 6 I’
m sorry about the spiritualists. - 7 I’m sorry no one could pick up TV or radio, except for the barmy local station in the old wartime fort which most of the time played industrial whalesong.
- 8 I’m sorry the electricity supply was as bad as the weather and the singers. But on the plus side I did give you a decommissioned nuclear power station which attracts more tourists than Glastonbury Tor and allows the locals to sell home-made radiation detection badges.
See, it wasn’t all bad. - 9 I’m sorry the people I despatched to this hell from London behaved so bizarrely and upset these good folk, who as you can see had enough to contend with.
On the other hand, as the novel is about other lives, perhaps you’ll enjoy Vellanoweth’s literary alter ego. To allow some respite, I did give you the neighbouring towns of Nowethland and Ixendon. If they really exist I’ll eat my atlas.
Yours sincerely, Roz
(Thank you for the pictures, Hydra Arts, Angelhead and Abode of Chaos)
My Memo
ries of a Future Life is out now on Kindle. A print edition and audiobook edition are also available.
ries of a Future Life is out now on Kindle. A print edition and audiobook edition are also available.
You can listen to the first four chapters for free on http://mymemoriesofafuturelife.com/2011/09/01/download-free-audio-of-the-first-4-chapters/
Roz Morris is a ghostwriter, editor and the author of Nail Your Novel - Why Writers Abandon Books and How You Can Draft, Fix and Finish With Confidence. Her website is www.rozmorris.wordpress.com and she blogs at www.nailyournovel.com. You can follow her on Twitter as @Roz_Morris.
Comments
Jo - I think I grovelled pretty comprehensively there.
Madwippitt - perhaps I'll go in disguise. I am very curious to visit them now, though.
Jan - LOL! There's always one...
So maybe it's more a case of the names belonging to certain types of places... you can invent the place, but not the name? Even the spelling is not necessarily wrong - many towns and villages have had various different spellings through the years.
Susan - Thank you (and your handsome unicorn...)
The good news is that someone from unexpected (and previously unknown) reaches of the world has read your book!
That has to count for something.
:))
It's driving me nuts that I can't remember who said it, but a great writer once pointed out that all your friends will be offended when they see themselves in your novel whether they're there or not---or else they'll be offended when they don't.
Hi Victoria! Oh that's so true. I have a friend who has repeatedly hinted he'd like to have a walk-on at least.
"All novelist who describe what is called 'society life' are pursued by the exasperating accusation of putting flesh-and-blood people into their books. Anyone gifted with the least creative faculty knows the absurdity of such a charge. 'Real people' transported into a work of the imagination would instantly cease to be real; only those born of the creator's brain can give the least illusion of reality.... Nothing can be more trying to the creative writer than to have a clumsy finger point at one of the beings born in that mysterious other-world of invention, with the playful accusation: 'Of course we all recognize your aunt Eliza!'"
And there's also this:
"Every writer uses the people in his life -- what other experience does he or she have? For every Dubliner who was scandalized by the publication of Joyce's Ulysses and every East Side socialite who was shocked by Capote's 'La Cote Basque,' there are probably as many people who felt hurt that they were not included. What's worse: to read something scathing about yourself, or to be deemed unworthy of comment?"
(Betsy Lerner, The Forest for the Trees).
As an aside, I will note that I emphatically agree with Edith Wharton: nothing is more trying than a clumsy finger point.
My thanks to you all,
Ray
I read MMOAFL, all the time thinking that Vellanoweth was an anagram of The Law Novel or The Awl Novel! And that I'd guessed some writerly trick of yours :)
I google virtually every name I come up with. Whatever it is, it always seems to exist somewhere. Probably prior to the internet , we would never have known. Never mind. This stuff happens and at least you took steps to put things right with the real inhabitants!