An Interview with E.M. Carter, author of Repression Ground

It has been a productive year for Liz Carter. She has published not one but two books.  That’s quite an achievement for anyone, but probably not how Liz would want to judge herself.

Her first book out this year was Valuable. In it she exposes what she calls the “productivity lie” and how God sees our worth not in our doing but in our being. Our relationship with Him is far more important than our usefulness. Even in our weakness we are loved and valuable as Liz has discovered living with a chronic and debilitating lung condition over many years.

I read Valuable in July and wrote a blog about it comparing it to the new Mission Impossible film – which is just how my quirky mind works, putting things together and often making crazy connections.

Only a few months later I was privileged to read an advanced copy of her first novel Repression Ground, written under the name of E.M. Carter.

It is the first book of the Newland trilogy, a complete departure from her previous works. This is Young Adult Dystopian fiction. However, it struck me quite early on that although both are written with a very different audience in mind, there are a great deal of similarities in the themes of usefulness, value and worth. Surely this is not just me joining up imaginary dots again.

So, I started by asking Liz which writing idea came first or did the two books grow organically together?

Way back in the early 2010s I tentatively posted my first blogpost. I’d been wanting to write my whole life, but something happening in those times filled me with a new urgency: some of the stories in the news I was seeing about disabled people on benefits in the new austerity narrative of those times, and how society seemed to be sorting them into ‘strivers’ and ‘skivers’. 

As a disabled person myself I felt passionately about the messages being passed on and the damaging lie that people were of more worth if they were more useful – or productive. From then on, I had a vision to write both these books: a non-fiction book for the Christian market exploring value, and a novel for the mainstream market imagining a world where some of these kinds of messages had gone so far they’d become the basis for that society. 

Imagine Britain’s Got Talent where contestants are judged on their productivity and not their talent – that was my first picture of Newland, a future England ruled by a fascist dictatorship. The idea just took off from there, and both books kind of grew alongside each other and informed one another.

Have you always wanted to write fiction? And how easy has the transition been between non-fiction and fiction?

I was writing fiction when I was small, inspired by Narnia and the Faraway Tree. I even wrote a book at eight years old; an adventure story about goblins under the River Dove (as you do). My teacher, Mrs Johnson, told me then I’d be an author one day, and I’ve dedicated Repression Ground to her because she asked me to dedicate my first novel to her. Sorry it’s taken so many years, Mrs J! 

Over the years I wrote less and less, swallowed up in life, sickness and raising a family, and when I went back into it I concentrated on the non-fiction, devotional side. I somehow felt I wasn’t a proper writer, that I couldn’t possibly write a novel, even though that childhood yearning had never left me, but as I wrote more non-fiction material I felt inspired to go for it with fiction. For me it was more of a parallel journey than a transition – and it’s been an exciting one.

Which do you prefer writing? Although this won’t have required as much study or research as you have created a whole new believable world, set in the not-too-distant future.

I love writing both, just as I love writing poetry – different things about these ways of writing fire me and inspire me. But I have to admit that there’s nothing like the breathless rush of fiction writing; when the words fall over one another, spilling out like a waterfall, it’s like a grand adventure – and there’s nothing like it. 

Writing gives me joy, and writing fiction has felt like freedom in many ways – caged in a life of disease, my imagination gives me liberation from these shackles as characters play across the screen in my mind (and often go ways I hadn’t planned all of their own accord!) Building a whole new imagined future has been an exciting departure from my usual writing, yet somehow also a natural step on the journey of it all, and I hope to continue to write both fiction and non-fiction.

The book is the first in a trilogy, so how far ahead have you written it? Do you know exactly how it will end, or do you think your characters will surprise you with more twists and turns in the story along the way?

I’ve written books one and two. Book two, Rebellion Ground, will be published (again with Resolute Books) in June 2024, so at the moment it’s undergoing edits. I have yet to finish book three, Redemption Ground, but it is tightly plotted, and I am so excited to write it and allow the characters to show me exactly where to go – they like to surprise me from time to time, however well plotted! 

I do know how it will end, but how it gets there may change – I can’t wait to see how. I’ve set aside a couple of months in 2024 to knuckle down and write it – then there’s the editing process, of course!

How much is Girl C like you? Or do you identify more with one of the other characters? Did you have a favourite character to write?

In some ways Girl C is like me. She’s a little unsure of herself and often feels ‘lesser’ because of her disabilities, and even more so in a society where disabilities are hidden away and unsupported. But she’s also hot-tempered, feisty and tenacious, and probably goes a lot further than I would when she’s angry! 

She’s a strong person who has never known what it is to be loved, so it was a challenge to write that into her character and how she thought about things – I had to throw myself into different shoes to imagine the way she would think and act. I realised how easy it could be to indoctrinate children, and how difficult for that child to throw off those bonds and see life differently, and I hope I’ve written her authentically doing so. 

I’m looking forward to sharing more of her story and character development, as well as that of her two best friends, Jacob and Amy, who have their own issues and ways of thinking. I identify with both of these, too – both of them driven by the love family members shower on them in a society where such things are discouraged, and responding in different ways to the secrets and lies that pave the streets of Newland.

Thanks Liz for your comprehensive answers. I can't wait to find out what happens next to the trio of friends. There are lots of unanswered questions at the end of Repression Ground that need resolving, as is fitting at the start of a trilogy.

If you want to find out more I heartily recommend you get yourself a copy of the book. It is published by Resolute Books and you can buy it from Amazon by clicking here 

And why not check out Liz's new author page and sign up for her newsletter to get firsthand news when book two is released - emcarter.carterclan.me.uk 

The in between space

I’ve finally handed my memoir over to be formatted into a REAL book and now I’m in between.

I’ve never been here before.

It’s like waiting on a railway platform for the next train to pull in.

I wonder where it will take me?

Somewhere new or a familiar route where I can list each station off by heart?

 

“Mind the gap,” the announcement says.

I slipped once, missed the step, and fell between the train and the platform.

I was only a small child so my mum hauled me back up.

It’s an odd, half remembered memory.

I’m certain it happened but maybe I should ask mum to be sure it wasn’t just my fertile imagination.

 

My mind jumps to a film with Sandra Bullock in – While you were Sleeping,

I check my DVD collection, I don’t own a copy, but I do have The Lake House.

I Google it to make sure I’ve remembered the plot -

Does she save a man from an oncoming train? of course she does!

(makes a change from driving a runaway bus I suppose)

 

Maybe Sandra Bullock can play me if they ever make a film out of my memoir!

 

Oh, this is silly. My mind has taken a meandering twist away from reality.

But this is what happens in the in between space,

The space where you have no idea what happens next.

 

I dream of a worldwide book tour and TV appearances

I dream of a box of unloved books gathering dust in the corner of a room

I dream of something in between

 

And I wonder where I will be in six months’ time?

Who I will be – will I still be me?

Or will I be Sandra Bullock?

If Biscuits were Swear Words

 I was having a WhatsApp chat with some writing friends yesterday about the use of swear words in our writing, particularly with reference to writing for young adults or for a Christian audience.

What one person finds perfectly acceptable might cause great offence to someone else. How to be authentic without upsetting your readers can be a minefield.

Then someone said, in the cartoon Bluey the word “biscuits” is used to denote frustration.

Well, that got me thinking and I came up with this…

If Biscuits were Swear Words!

KIT KAT and PENGUIN were her expletives of choice.

The chocolate covered cadence of the words had real power,

in her opinion.

CUSTARD CREAM and RICH TEA were insipid,

                                                                Too NICE

                                                to pack a punch,                               

they are the biscuits chanted in the school playground

                                by the lips of innocent children.

She once heard someone say GARABALDI, loud and clear with venom.

But many people consider the word just too fruity!

“Oh, GYPSY CREMES!” said the woman in the purple skirt,

                when she tripped over its long hem.

Her singsong voice making the biscuit sound exotic,

even playful

JAMMIE DODGERS are her brother’s words of choice,

                                as he weaves through his day,

                                                not a care in the world,

                                                                who he might offend.

Saying GINGER NUTS got a raised eyebrow from her Granny once.

Muttering JAFFA CAKES under her breath, just made Grandpa giggle.

 

But it was the day she heard her mother yell

                                                “CHOCOLATE HOB NOBS!”

When she realised life would never be the same again.

Longing for the scent of petrichor

 

Three years ago I posted a collage on Facebook of garden flowers and wrote about the smell of petrichor in the air after the rain.

Three years ago my dad died, but that happened after my post so that will be tomorrow’s Facebook memory.

Do I need Facebook to remind me?

My mum has the date marked on her calendar in the kitchen – how can any of us forget?

But I’d prefer the day to pass without much thought, like my dad, I’m not that sentimental.

And this has been a strange week, this week I tested positive for Covid for the very first time.

When dad died it was rife, there were restrictions on funerals, so many new rules we had to live by.

Now there are no rules, I don’t have to isolate, I didn’t need to test, I can carry on regardless.

But I don’t.

And maybe part of it is actually grief, the loss of my dad, the loss of a world we once knew and the deeper grief I carry everywhere that dates back almost thirteen years.

Today I feel heavy and aching and broken

But this will pass

The flowers will bloom

The rain will come

And I will smell the petrichor once more.

A Woman of Ingenuity

 

After checking the meaning I scroll down my screen to see that words related to ingenuity include, ability, brilliance, dexterity, flair, genius, and gumption.

An old memory is ignited of me bursting into tears at primary school because I hadn’t a clue what the word gumption meant. To me it sounded like the name of a cleaning product – gumption, removes all stubborn stains with just one squirt.

Perhaps at the time I never had enough of it and I admit I am still in awe of the women I know who appear to have flair, genius, and ingenuity in abundance.

Take for instance my friend Ruth Leigh, now she may disagree as she holds her fanned cards close to her chest, never revealing a dodgy hand, while coquettishly fluttering eyelashes in the style of a Jane Austen heroine.

I do hope she enjoys that description because she is a self-confessed Jane Austen superfan who has used her ingenuity to great effect writing a collection of short stories based on the minor characters from Pride and Prejudice. The characters who only get a passing mention.

reading in the garden

There’s a story about Sally the maid, who is tasked with mending Lydia Bennet’s frock and is not best pleased about it. A tale about the gossipy Mrs Long who plays matchmaker for her two neices (Ruth chuses to use spelling that Jane Austen would be familiar with). We see the darker side of the cook at Netherfield Park and you wouldn’t want to fall fowl of Mrs Nicholls. She is only called Mrs because of her position, according to her "men are nothing but trouble".

My personal favourite story is that of Mrs Jenkinson, Miss Anne de Bourgh’s companion, who is described by Maria Lucas as an “old lady”. The story is entitled An Unremarkable Woman but I enjoyed the backstory that gave her such an unexpected and interesting life for a woman of her time and social standing.

The historical details are meticulously researched and each story beautifully imagined as these lesser known characters are brought to life.  

Ruth has been getting much well-deserved praise from other regency scholars who know so much more about the period. Her writing is high-end fan fiction, easily comparable to bestselling novels such as Longbourn by Jo Baker, The Other Benett Sister by Janice Hadlow and Death Comes to Pemberly by PD James, to name just a few.

Novels have been written inspired by Austen’s other works too, particular favourites of mine include the modern reimagining of Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid and The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. It is great to know that Ruth intends to follow suit and is already mulling over story ideas for her next collection based on the minor characters from Emma.

But this is in between other projects such as the fourth in her fabulous Isabella M Smugge series and whatever other inventive ideas she comes up with before breakfast.

Ruth truly is a woman of much ingenuity and I most delighted to call her a friend.

A Great Deal of Ingenuity is published by Resolute Books use the link below for more information.

https://www.resolutebooks.co.uk/books/p/a-great-deal-of-ingenuity

A diverting picture of Colin Firth as Mr Darcy because - why not?

Being used, feeling useful and finding your true worth

Last night I went to see the latest Mission Impossible film.

As we have come to expect from the franchise it is filled with unbelievable stunts and incredible actions sequences, all wrapped around a thrilling edge of your seat storyline. It might not be completely credible but it’s easy to suspend disbelief in reality, sit back, munch your popcorn and enjoy.

The one line that jumped out at me was

                “He can use you. He will see your value.” (paraphrased)

Ethan Hunt is talking about Kittridge, the puppet master of the IMF, who pulls everyone’s strings should you accept his mission.

He will recruit those with worth to the cause, those with the right shady skill set, the kind of talents that would put most people behind bars. But if you mess up, leave too many dead bodies in your wake, or if you go rogue, you are immediately disavowed, abandoned on your own.

So why did this almost throwaway line stick in my head? I’m sure most people sitting in the cinema would not have given it a second thought.

Probably because I’ve been reading a book called Valuable by Liz Carter. Under the beautiful gold lettering of the title, it says “why your worth is not defined by how useful you feel.”

Liz suffers from a chronic lung condition which can stop her from leaving the house for days and has on some occasions been so severe that she has been hospitalised. Further lung damage from complex pneumonia meant she had to give up teaching and one day she faced the inevitable introductory question. “What do you do?”

It’s said so innocently, it trips off the tongue as if what you do is what makes you important in life.

I will admit it’s my least favourite question too, I’m a full-time mum, but my boys are now in their twenties, a housewife without a husband to care for since he died, a volunteer, a cancer survivor, a writer??? Maybe? Please ask a different question or compliment me on my hair instead.

We are obsessed with what people DO, but does a fancy job title make them valuable? Liz calls this the “productivity lie.”

If we are not USEFUL to society what about as a Christian being USEFUL to God?

Sadly, it has become common parlance in our prayer lives when we face tough times. I have prayed that God can USE my situation of being widowed young and I so often see writing a book about it that helps others as the reason it all happened in the first place. In my tiny human brain that sort of makes some sense of the tragedy.

Liz wonders if this language is helpful? Does God really USE us like an object?

It is a crass way of seeing things, we don’t have our own children to be our objects, seeing their worth in what they can do for us and God is the perfect heavenly Father. We are not created to be His puppets.

Unlike Kittridge in Mission Impossible God does not judge our worth in what we can do, he won’t disavow and reject us if we fail.

He loves us unconditionally and, in her book, Liz highlights other words to redefine our relationship with God “partnership, joining and co-working.”

God’s Kingdom is an upside down one where he comes alongside the broken, the messed up, those who feel they don’t measure up. Just look at the disciples, mostly fishermen, a tax collector, a motley crew of misfits and hardly the brightest bunch but Jesus chose them as his closest friends and revealed his secrets to them, even if they rarely understood the bigger picture.

Jesus didn’t USE them, he gently worked alongside them in partnership and even in their failings they were not USELESS. Their stories give us hope that there is a place for us in our weakness too. We are VALUABLE.

As Liz says in her concluding chapter, “you are a mirror of God’s glory, not an object of God’s use.”

It could take some time to completely change the language we use (pun intended), to be honest we probably never will but maybe being more aware is a good start. Better yet got hold of a copy of the book - just click here  https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/valuable 

And a final takeaway from Mission Impossible – while Kittridge may think he’s all powerful and in control, Ethan Hunt and his allies never doubt their worth and always look out for one another. Not because they might come in useful for the next mission but because as painful as it might be to admit they are true friends.

Hands up who remembers Friends Reunited?

Hands up who remembers Friends Reunited? It all seems such a long time ago, my children were tiny and we had a dial up connection for our shared family computer, housed in a cubby hole under the stairs.

I can hear the squeaks and beeps, with the sound of Tellytubbies on in the background. Meanwhile I furtively looked up old friends and acquaintances to compare notes.

I may never have had a brilliant career but now I had my own little family, and for the girl who never had a proper boyfriend until she was twenty-four I had finally “made it”. How had everyone else fared I wondered?

Of course, Friends Reunited was only the first of many, Facebook superseded it and many other social media platforms have come and gone in the intervening years.

I have always been a big fan of Facebook. Andrew and I joined when our eldest was still twelve to get ahead of the game before he turned thirteen and was officially allowed to have his own account – we were strict parents.

One of my favourite tasks each day is to catch up with Facebook memories, the online photo diary of yesteryear.

I joined Twitter when I started writing, came off it a few years later but decided to start a new account a couple of years ago – my old Twitter handle still existed, it was almost as if I’d never been away – only much has changed including number of characters you could use in one tweet – it had doubled - that’s inflation I suppose!

Meanwhile Instagram is still all new to me and I will confess I don’t really get it – how am I supposed to share stories? How do I share a blog post? What’s with all the #######?

But apparently it is essential for a writer’s profile, all that promotion potential, if you know how to work the system. I’m certainly followed by plenty of people – lots on new men every day – Johnny Depp and Keanu Reeves – oh I don’t think so matey – Block! Block! Block!

This is all stopping me from writing in the first place.

And now Twitter is collapsing into a black hole – although its demise seems to be in slow motion, much talked about but is anything happening or is it just hype?

Only a few months ago people were jumping ship to Mastodon – I never bothered. But now there is Threads – should I click the magic button and add another social media platform to my growing portfolio – it’s all in aid of promoting my book which is in the stages of being published, so I need a space to shout into cyberspace – buy my book!!!!!! Is anybody listening?????

To be honest I’m getting a bit tired of it all, should I give it all up or just take a break for a month or two.

A nagging voice tells me I would lose traction, lose followers, fall foul of the algorithms, and disappear into my own black hole.

Then again it might be nice and quiet there, I might get the chance to think, to actually write something!

What really excites me about releasing my book into the wild is meeting real people. I dream of talking to church groups, WI’s or anyone that would like me to speak – if I sell a book or two what a bonus. It’s all a bit of a daydream but I’m going to try and make it happen.

I don’t need to make this work for financial gains, in many ways I am lucky I lost my husband and I can live off his pension. It also gave me something to write about – oh the irony. Black humour has seen me through a lot of dark days.

But, back to the subject of social media, do I join Threads to be sociable, or just wait and see?????

I’m sure it will be filled with the same people I already follow and the same photos they have shared elsewhere will pop up again – same old same old – In the good old days’ procrastination used to be much more fun without the FOMO.

Meanwhile, I’ve caught up with most of my old school friends now, marriages, divorces, children and careers, most of my friends don’t share as much as they used to. There are only a few of us on Facebook still over sharing - Wordle scores, sunrises, vicariously sharing our children’s successes, because our children have long since abandoned Facebook. I have one son who only uses Twitter for work and one who doesn’t see the point of any of it.

Perhaps it’s not just Twitter that’s dying maybe we are waking up to the fact that “social media” is not terribly sociable after all.

Although I am a hypocrite because I shall still be sharing a link to this blog on Facebook and Twitter 

because how else will you find me!!!!