The NZ fiction journey begins

Since I've finally finished reading Nancy Wake - which I wanted to finish by the end of 2012 but just didn't get round to it - my NZ fiction journey can begin!
You have seen me mention it before, but just to recap... I am reading only New Zealand fiction this year for three reasons: #1 I feel like we give international authors too much of the spotlight, with our books squished into dusty back shelves in our own book stores. #2 I want to become a New Zealand author one day, and I'm working on an epic three-part series called Missing Since Tuesday, so I want to learn what I can from those who have gone before me. #3 Apart from maybe reading something by a NZ author in school (which I can't remember but I'm sure it must have been in the curriculum somewhere), I have never read a book by a New Zealand author and of that I'm a little ashamed.

So here I go, and I'm starting with a lesser-known book called Flashback Forward by John Cairney. I should probably start with something a little more well known, but I've just been hankering to get into this one since I bought it over a year ago, so I'm starting with it.

Here's what it's about:

Tam Cochrane is a sickly lad, confined to his bed in Glasgow in the 1880s. His only experience of adventure and the outside world is through books - that is until his father decides to sell up and head for New Zealand. As they take the four-month journey by ship, Tam's health begins to improve, and with it signs of a new Tam, fully engaging in the real world. After arriving in their new country, the family heads to Rotorua and Tarawera, only to be caught in the volcanic eruption of 1886. Having been concussed, Tam wakes up, groggy but still the fit young man he'd been growing into, except he finds he is in Napier, emerging from the ruins of the 1931 earthquake. What has happened to the last 45 years? Why is he still a young man? And who is the other Tam Cochrane, now living like a recluse back in Glasgow? An intriguing story, it is set among the cataclysmic events of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and deals with identity, with finding out who we really are in life and with living it to the full.

Synopsis from Google Books

Nancy Wake, my hero

If I had the chance to go back in time and be anyone I wanted to be, I would be Nancy Wake.

I've just finished reading her biography, Nancy Wake by Peter Fitzsimons, and, it's a big call I know, but I'm just putting it out there... I have never heard of a more fearless, kick-ass human being in all of history.

I first heard of Nancy Wake when she died at the ripe old age of 98 in 2011, and was thrilled when I found out she was a New Zealander, as most people knew her as an Australian, since she moved there as a young child.
I asked dad about her and he told me she was nicknamed "White Mouse" because of her ability to evade capture during World War two. By the end of the war, she was on top of the Gestapo's  most wanted list, and she ended up being one of the most highly decorated war heroes of the second world war.
In the early days of the war when France was occupied by Nazis, Nancy helped saved thousands of people by setting up escape routes out of France into Spain, and then, as the war intensified, she was trained as a spy by the British and led 7,000 resistance fighters in D-Day preparations.
She parachuted into France, organised food, clothes and weapons to be dropped from the sky, embarked on a 500km bike ride in 72 hours to get a new radio when theirs had to be destroyed (the radio was their most important weapon - without it they could not continue what they were doing because they couldn't arrange for supplies to be sent from Britain), and basically, she organised a band of soldiers to piss the Germans off so much that they were driven out of France - they blew up bridges, ammunition stores, and attacked German troops unseen and took off back into the mountains.
And they did leave. France was liberated in the end. And after reading about Nancy, I think it would have been a whole lot harder if not for her.
After reading the book, I looked her up on YouTube, and, one video that struck me was one where Peter Fitzsimons, the author, was talking about the book launch, and said that when Nancy was asked to go up and speak, she simply stood up and said, "I've got one thing to say. I killed a lot of Germans, and I'm only sorry I didn't kill more. Thank you." And sat down. A sentence like that just sums her up completely. What a woman.

Feel good friday

                 








Not a lot has happened this week, so today it's all about the little things making me happy:

♥  Making an amazing batch of raspberry and orange muffins
♥ Starting a new book (Nancy Wake by Peter Fitzsimons)
♥ Writing a couple of chapters for Missing Since Tuesday and Strawberry Jam (which I'm now calling Demons in her Garden - just for a change, might not stay that way, who knows where the story is going? Not me...)
♥ Sitting in the hot sun yesterday - the first truly hot, summer-feeling day so far this season
♥ Joining National Novel Writing Month (anyone ever done this before?) - so excited, might actually finish something for once!

What's making you happy this week friends? ♥ 

Oh, and don't forget to follow my Facebook Page :-)

Story of your life

Now that I'm settled in a job I enjoy, I've stopped thinking so much about my future. I used to think and fret about my next step constantly, but now that I'm where I've wanted to be for a long time, I'm sitting back a bit.

But the other day, I read an obituary of New Zealand's greatest war heroine Nancy Wake (who I did a blog post about), and then I was so inspired by her story that I went and bought the book by Peter Fitzsimons. That got me thinking. My favourite kinds of stories to write for the paper are life stories - not necessarily obituaries - just the story of a person's life, and, at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, I'm quite good at it. So I said to myself, "I would make a good biographer".

But it seems to me like a biographer is one of those career paths people just fall into, they don't plan it. I read up on Peter Fitzsimons, and he is a rugby player turned journalist who ended up writing a few biographies.

So I ask you: How does one become a biographer?

NZ's greatest war heroine

She may have left New Zealand as a toddler, but we still claim her and she still saw New Zealand as her home until the day she died.
Nancy Wake, who passed away on August 7th at age 98, was nicknamed "white mouse"  for her ability to elude capture during World War II when she helped thousands of downed Allied pilots and Jewish families elude German and Vichy officials to reach the Pyrenees and neutral Spain.
She was living in France when Nazi Germany invaded. She joined the French Resistance and was smuggled into England for specialist training.
In 1944, she was parachuted back into France, where she co-ordinated the efforts of thousands of fighters and fought alongside them.
Wake was at one point number one on the Gestapo's most-wanted list - with an offer of five million francs for anyone who dobbed her in or killed her.
As soon as I read her obituary in the newspaper, I just had to find her biography, and had to visit about eight bookstores in the city before I found it up the coast.
Her story is written by Peter Fitzsimons, who I have heard writes a great biography. I don't really read biographies, only ones I'm absolutely passionate about like John Lennon by Philip Norman, but I'm really looking forward to sinking my teeth into this one.
It seems empowered females are becoming the theme of my blog at the moment... yesterday I talked about my role models Audrey Hepburn and Kate Middleton (also the 21st Century's worst role models: Kendra Wilkinson, Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton), and I have a feeling Nancy Wake will become one too.
How could she not? Not only was she beautiful, but she could do anything a man could do and more.