Abigail Rieley

The last of the Christmas decorations have been boxed up and put away and the rapidly moulting tree was dragged off down to the recycling centre this morning.  The house now looks twice the size and impossibly, depressingly bare.

I was ready to scream if the tinsel and the baubles had stayed up one more night but predicably now they’re gone for another year I’m in the dumps.  It’s probably got a lot to do with the rather uncertain forcast for 2009 and the fact that I’m actually going to have to settle on one project to start on and just pray it earns some money.

Its a weird thing to be moaning about I know.  I might be temporarily lacking in steady employment but I’m not exactly short of avenues to explore.  The January cold and gloom though makes it feel like those times in the dim and distant past when the heating kept going off because you’d forgotten to pay the bill and you didn’t answer knocks at the door in case it was someone looking for money (yes I’m old enough to remember the days before Ireland became the land of milk and honey).

Rationally I know times have changed beyond recognition and I’m no longer an eighteen year old calling herself a writer when she got into conversations with other people in the queue for the Dole.  Now I actually am a writer and the book’s available in all good bookshops.  But sitting in the newly denuded living room with nothing much to do in the middle of the afternoon and no one to talk to but the cat, it really doesn’t feel any different.

I know there’s stuff I should be doing, emails I should be sending, phonecalls I should be making, but today January just got on top of me and optimism just seemed a stretch too far.  Tomorrow I’ll go round the bookshops, maybe sign some more copies (honestly it was my publisher’s idea, I’m not just a desperate meglomaniac) and rev myself myself up to the relentlessly cheerful state of mind that I usually manage to keep up until the leaves come back on the trees and I don’t have to fake it any more.

But some days were just meant to be bad and the cold, grey empty ones lend themselves to it easier than others.  The decorations are away and it’s time to start the new year for real…tomorrow.

I ended up getting completely distracted yesterday afternoon by the impending announcement about the next actor to be cast in the role of Dr Who.  I ended up in a texting conversation with the brother-in-law trying to guess the name as we both waited for the announcement to be made.

Ever since I can remember I’ve been mad about Dr Who.  The earliest shows I can remember watching were part of that familiar Saturday evening line-up in the seventies…Basil Brush, Star Trek and Dr Who. The doctor was the stand out highlight.  I like science fiction but I’m not a complete sci fi nut but with Dr Who it was different.

As a child of my time, I’m very much in the Tom Baker camp when it comes to naming my favourite Dr.  It’s very much a matter of age since the series has been running for more than 40 years and the role itself has been played by ten different actors.  Matt Smith, the new guy is number 11.  Ask someone who their favourite doctor is or was and they’ll invariably mention the actor who played the part in their childhood so for me it’s Tom Baker, but the husband, being a few years older, leans towards John Pertwee.  My nephews on the other hand, being eight and nine are firmly in the David Tennant camp, though at least their dad has made sure they’re familiar with the old series as well.

Forgive me if I’m sounding geeky, I’ve been a Dr Who geek long before the current hysteria.  It was always the highlight of the week when I was small and I still look forward to the Christmas special with way too much enthusiasm.  I  might not hide behind the sofa these days but still find it easy to suspend disbelief and get into the adventure.

I can remember visiting friends and acting out our own scenarios.  I seem to remember arguing to toss quite heatedly because I never got to play the doctor myself, reluctantly conceding that the doctor had to be a boy (something the show’s producers obviously agree on!).  I remember how I cried when the robot dog K9 was retired for the first time to cheer loudly when Tom Baker wheeled in a large cardboard box stamped K-9 mark II.

The one toy I wanted to quite obsessional levels, and never got, was a battery operated K-9.  Years later, once the show was revived and the husband finally got me a remote control K9 - it quite made my Christmas - even if it had arrived almost thirty years late.   For some reason the show had a special place in the imagination that no other science fiction show before or since has ever managed to quite match.

When a friend who was also an avid fan and used to act when he was younger got a part in a show with Patrick Troughton.  I was far more jealous that he had got to act with a former Time Lord than over the fact he had a main part in a high profile tv series.

I think my appreciation has changed over the years.  Since the new series started I watch it with as much appreciation for the writing as the whole Time Lord mythos.  When I was a kid I wanted to be in Dr Who.  I wanted to be a companion (once I got my head around the fact I couldn’t be the doctor) and take part in the adventures I watched every Saturday teatime.

These days I’d prefer to write the adventures.  I’ve been known to daydream about how the circumstances might come about (once I’d managed to become a best selling author and media darling etc, etc, etc.).  Well when you’re sitting in your pajamas in front of a blank page struggling to find the words you need for that first paragraph when the deadline’s far too close and you’re wondering why you ever got yourself into this in the first place, you need the odd carrot!

The idea of actually putting dialogue into the mouths of the doctor and his current companion is ludicrously attractive.  To maybe write a classic episode that people remember just as I can still remember episodes that went out in the mid seventies.

But I’ll just have to keep dreaming about that.  It’s not as if I’m even a script writer.  But you never know.  When I was a kid I never really thought I’d be an actual published author.  And a person has to have ambitions!

It happens every year, during those dead days when the presents and the turkey and the Christmas pud start to feel overly familiar.  The last few days when the New Year has been rung in but the tree’s still up and tedium reigns supreme.

We stick to the old twelve days of Christmas in our house.  The new year doesn’t start in earnest until January 6th when the tree is brought down for recycling and the decorations get zipped back up into their Ben & Jerry’s cooler bag and stowed in a cupboard while the days gradually get longer.

I’ve always waited until the 6th to take down the decorations.  January 6th was my dad’s birthday (he died when I was a baby) and it always seemed in some way appropriate to celebrate Twelth Night for him.  The husband holds a similar superstition and so up stay the decorations and all resolutions are put off until they’ve gone away.

To be honest, there’s not really much choice.  We live in a little terraced house and once the tree’s gone up, there’s limited room in the main living area.  With other drawers and cupboards hidden by laiden branches, my desk (in a corner of this main room - would probably be an idea to move but I like where it sits, in a little cubby hole under the stairs) become the repository for all the festive detritus that doesn’t have a home.

As I write I’m looking at three presents that haven’t yet been given, a bowl of Christmas chocolates and another one of nuts, various festive cds and dvds, a cat pencil sharpener that squeals whenever you sharpen a pencil by sticking it up it’s bum (ok that sort of lives there and was a Christmas present), various lengths of ribbon left over from present wrapping and six rolls of Sellotape and two tubes of Araldite glue.  I might not be the most consientious house frau but even by my standards that’s pretty ridiculous!

I know the obvious answer is to have a more minimalist Christmas but that’s something I just can’t bring myself to do.  For me Christmas is a puddle of light in an otherwise grim season and it’s a festival I always embrace wholeheartedly.  The other eleven months the house work can go hang if I’m on a deadline or the inspiration is actually doing what it’s supposed to.  But for the few weeks from the second week of December until the end of the first week in January I morph into a Stepford Wife and the writing tends to take a back seat.

Consequently once the end of the season is only a few days away the tension starts building.  Quite apart from all the work I know I have to do starting Monday (invoices to write, emails to send, a book trailer to shoot and some heavy editing to get stuck into) I’m itching to get the hoover out and vacuum up all the pine needles (my inner Stepford hasn’t quite evaporated yet).

I feel quite irritable all the time, waiting for the year to get started and to clear the festivities away for another year.  Because at the end of all, while I love Christmas and I wouldn’t change the way we do it for love or money, after a few weeks off I’m brimming with ideas and I can’t wait to get back into that zone again and start work.

In the mean time I’m doing what I can.  This is one resolution I can keep up in the brief interludes of peace I can find and the rest will follow next week.  Roll on the 6th!

Every year since I was a child I’ve started each new diary on January 1st with a list of the resolutions I intend to fulfill throughout the year.  It’s not a particularly imaginative way to start the year but the habit’s stuck and so it continues.

In recent years, since I discovered the wonderful writer’s diary produced by the literary magazine MsLexia my resolutions have become more focused.  I still promise myself this is the year I’m going to get in shape, start fencing again, become a fully fledged domestic goddess and make more time for housework but it seems to make a lot more sense to resolve to do things I have a chance of following through rather than setting myself up for disappointment before I start.

So every year the first page of the diary is the home of my professional aspirations, a point by point plan of where I want to be by the end of the year.  Some resolutions have been in the same place for years but others have seen some definate movement.  It’s always interesting to look back over old diaries and see where you thought you were going.

This year was a tricky one.  I’ve never been in this situation at the turn of the year you see.  On the one hand I’ve achieved something I’ve been wanting to do for as long as I can remember and I’m closer to where I want to be than I ever have.  On the other hand I’m technically jobless and let’s be honest, it’s not exactly the best time to be looking for alternative employment.

Rather than simply throwing a load of ideas at the wall when it comes to resolution time, in the hope that at least one of them will stick, I now have to work out what I need to do to finally achieve my dreams.

On the one hand I’d like to concentrate on my novel, on the other building on the genre I’ve been writing in so far seems like the most sensible path, and the one that’s more likely to put bread on the table in the short term.

These musings probably sound rather self indulgent - after all I could simply hang on and push away exactly as I have been for the past couple of years.  After all, that’s got me where I am today.

It’s not that simple though.  I describe myself as a writer and a journalist on this blog.  It might seem like an unnecessary repetition but I think it’s an important distinction.  Journalism is what I trained at.  It’s how I pay the bills and hopefully how I will continue to pay them for the moment.  But writing is what I’ve always done.  Ever since I can remember I’ve told stories and woven plots.  I’m happiest when I’m making things up.

When I’m writing a piece of journalism or working on non-fiction I can tell the story and try to craft the existing plot into it’s sleekest form but I can’t deviate from the facts.  There are plenty of stories that need and deserve to be told in the world we live in and that’s why I love journalism but the satisfaction I get from telling a true story is nothing compared to following the thread of an idea inside your head and pulling in narrative rules until you have something that stands alongside reality, mirroring it but with your fingerprints all over it.

This isn’t exactly what I intended to be writing here.  When I started this blog it was to go hand in hand with the publication of the Devil in the Red Dress so this kind of artistic rush of whimsy was to be strictly banished in favour of clear, well-described facts and figures.

But this year, as I write down the latest batch of resolutions in the brand new writer’s diary I’m faced with the realisation that I’m going to have to start talking about this kind of stuff because like it or not it’s the writing I want to pursue more than anything else.

I’ll still be down at the Four Courts following trials from time to time but this year I want to pursue other things so you’re going to see a rather different side to me here.  I’m rather nervous about introducing a rather more personal aspect to this “personal blog” but I might as well start the year as I mean to go on…that’s what resolutions are all about!

So what can you expect to read here from now on?  Well if I’m down in the courts there’ll be more of my impressions of proceedings as I’ve done so far with trials like those of Finn Colclough and Dane Pearse.  But this year I want to write more about other things I write and the reality of being a (in all probability struggling) freelance writer/ journo.  I’ve been at this point several times over the years and I’ve always decided to do the sensible thing in terms of following the most regular source of income.  Well now it seems like a concerted push is needed if I’m ever going to have anything other than a double-barrelled profession.

God knows what I’ll be writing on the first page of next years diary.  This year it all feels a little bit make or break.  Wish me luck!

I’ve been very bad about posting here for most of the festive period…I’ve been enjoying a bit of communications black out and focusing on the much neglected home and husband.  Anyway, it’s a new year with new resolutions and one of them is to stop slacking and rejoin the world!

2008 was an incredible year for me.  Last January I had steady work in the Four Courts and no solid plans to write a book (other than the novel that spent most of 2008 sitting in the top drawer of my filing cabinet.)  As 2009 dawns Devil in the Red Dress is on the shelves (thankfully in ever dwindling numbers) and I’m officially freelance and sitting here trying to decide what to do next.  Do I focus on fiction or push ahead at building on what I’ve already achieved…and am I completely insane to be even asking that question in the first place?

The novel, about more another time, is sitting awaiting further editing and thanks to developments towards the end of 2008 might actually see the light of day some day soon (as long as the glum pronouncements on the future of publishing worldwide don’t come to pass.) It’s been a bizarre rollercoaster of a year but I think on balance it ended on a hell of an up!)

I’m very conscious of the fact that when I write here I hold an awful lot back.  I’m going to try and rectify that this year but the problem is that there’s been an awful lot going on the past few months that I simply can’t announce to the world in general just yet - hopefully all that will change before 2009 gets too much older.

A blog like this is an odd beast.  On the one hand I call it my personal blog, and certainly it’s completely separate from my publishers’ website, but it’s still very much a public persona.  I’ve spent too long writing for publication not to have a very strong internal editor screaming at me to tow the line when it comes to defamation and contempt of court.  But there’s a second consideration at play as well - just how personal do I want this blog to be?

I started the blog to write about the writing of and publication of Devil.  Now that Devil’s in print I have to decide where I want to go from here, not just with my writing but with the blogging as well.  So far the blog has been mainly focused on true crime (which is what Devil is and which is the bulk of the journalism I write) but if my options are expanding then surely the scope here should do likewise.

So far I’ve been slow to write completely unguardedly about my professional life.  As long as the book is in need of pushing then being one hundred per cent frank about certain things that happen day to day.  However, if I’m going to be branching out then maybe I should be more open. I’m not talking kiss and tell here just talking more about the frustrations and obstacles we all encounter in economic times like these.

My writing goal for this year is to write more books.  I enjoy the process of research and the freedom of writing at length.  I’d like to get somewhere with the fiction but the rent still has to be paid so I’ll not be hanging up my notebook and pen anytime soon.

In terms of this blog I’m just going to have to sit down and think hard about where it’s going…

Happy New Year!

Finn Colclough was sentenced to ten years in jail today for the killing of Sean Nolan.  As I’ve written about here before, he was convicted back in October of Sean Nolan’s manslaughter after a jury found him not guilty of murder.

It was an emotional sentence.  Both families were out in force, as they had been throughout the trial.  Colclough’s parents sat behind him as he stood to hear his fate and the public benches were full of family and friends on both sides.

After a few bits of end of term, end of year court business the sentence got underway.  The sentence hearing started with a brief summary of the facts, which I’m not going into here.  They’re in the posts leading up to Halloween on this blog.  There was some speculation about what would happen at the sentencing since it was known that the Nolan family were unhappy with the jury’s manslaughter verdict.

Charlotte Nolan, Sean’s mother, got up to give a victim impact statement on behalf of the family.  Dressed in an elegant black dress she sat very straight as she read out the prepared statement.  Although her voice cracked several times, she made it through to the end with no tears, finally having the chance to tell the court about the son she had loved and missed so terribly.

She painted a picture of an enthusiastic young man, intent on following his older brother into the Gardai, who was brave and lively and well liked.  She said he was very clothes conscious, using any available reflection to check on his hair.

In the bedroom the family had felt unable to touch since his death, the price tags from the clothes he had worn to his graduation still lay on the bed.

She spoke about the younger brother, who had asked Santa for his big brother back for Christmas and spoke of the innocence her younger children had lost after their brother’s violent death.

“They now realise that some nightmares are not imagined and don’t end when they open their eyes.”

Colclough’s mother, chef Alix Gardiner, also took the stand in her son’s defence.  She handed Judge Paul Carney the hand-written letter, riddled with spelling mistakes that her son had written to the family of the boy he had killed.

The Nolan family shook their heads and tightened their lips as they heard the expressions of remorse.  Nothing was going to bring their son back to them after all.

We heard again from Dr Paul O’Connell, one of the usual suspects among expert witnesses who give evidence in trials like these.  He’s a consultant psychiatrist with the Central Mental Hospital and usually gives evidence in cases of diminished responsibility.  In this case though he was giving a clinical assessment of Colclough both before and since his conviction.

We heard again about the OCD, diagnosed when Colclough was 9-years-old and treated until shortly before the tragic events of May 26th 2006.  Colclough did not seem to be a violent person, he told the court.  The danger was more of self harm, rather than injuring another.

When he was attacked in Cloverhill Prison, by another inmate who took exception to being told to be quiet while Colclough was on the phone, he made no effort to fight back.

But knowing that Colclough’s actions were atypical is unlikely to be any comfort to the Nolan family who will have to live without their Sean from now on.  Charlotte told the court that next year, instead of preparing for Sean’s 21st birthday they would instead be shopping for a grave stone.

She said, “Sean, my darling, to the world you are a tragic loss.  To us you were the world.”

This was a sad, tragic trial.  The ten year sentence came as quite a surprise but as Judge Carney said when handing down the sentence Colclough’s reaction to the perceived threat from Sean and his friends was so extreme, when he was safe inside his own home with the door locked, that it warranted a higher sentence.

I’ll be going back to Christmas now, leaving the New Year to worry about what to do next, but for the Nolan family and, to be fair, the Colclough’s as well, it will be a bleak Christmas indeed.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…well I’m not sure what they say about pastiches.  The current issue of The Phoenix (Ireland’s satirical magazine) has used a mock up of the cover of Devil in the Red Dress to poke fun of the Irish Times.

OK a direct plug would have been nicer but hell, any publicity no matter how oblique has to be a good thing.  I’m glad the title was suitably twistable!

Speaking of publicity, I’ve now got a full cast for my book trailer and I’m aiming to have it online before next week.  Thanks to my incredibly talented friends Natascha and Mercedes who worked wonders with a needle and thread and created costumes that look better than I had ever dreamed.

Anyone who has followed my Twitter feed will know I’ve been on the look out for smoking monkeys (of the ceramic kind, no animal welfare issues here) and I am pleased to report that I now have two of the little beauties the purpose of which will become clear once I post the finished trailer.

On a totally unrelated topic I was very sad to read yesterday that Oliver Postgate, the man behind such children’s TV classics as Bagpuss and the Clangers (classic if you grew up in the UK in the 70s as I did) has died.

I think at this stage most of the children we know have been given the DVDs of these wonderful shows.  They were magical programmes and have stood up to the test of time as well as any.

I’d like to finish this post with the final episode of the Clangers (a show I never really got as a kid and couldn’t understand why my mum loved it so much, I get it now.)  I think this is one of the most beautiful pieces of animation for children I have ever seen and it’s a fitting tribute to the man who told so many stories that touched so many children.

I got back from Ennis yesterday.  It was a pretty quick turn around just long enough for another round of signings and an interview with John Cooke on Clare FM.  I’ll post the interview when I get the chance.

I stayed the night with the sister of an old friend, who’s now a new friend and her lovely daughter Rachel.  It was a great night, just good food, nice wine and interesting conversation.  8-year-old Rachel paid me a massive compliment, using the presence of a real life author in the house (by which she meant me) as an excuse to stay up late.

It really made me think, talking to her about writing.  She writes stories herself and I was telling her how I had done the same when I was her age, in fact I don’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a writer.  I may have been a journalist for a decade but it’s only now I can really call myself a writer as well.

I’ve spent so long, over the years of being an aspiring writer, reading interviews with published authors talking about how they were always writing stories as children and knowing I had done the same gave me hope.  Seeing the same hope on Rachel’s face was a weird feeling, knowing that somehow over the last couple of months I’ve gone from aspiring to actual writer.

Now granted, Devil in the Red Dress is not a novel.  It might tell a fantastic story but it is one hundred per cent true.  But a story like that is easy to tell and I’ve tried to make the book the lively read it should be.  It’ll be a while yet before I turn to fiction although it’s something I have been interested in for a while.

Tomorrow Devil will be featured in the Irish Sun which is great.

My apologies if this post is completely all over the place.  I’ve had a raging cold for the last few days and my brain is still in a bit of a heap.  Hopefully normal service will be resumed in the next couple of days.  I’m getting a bit fed up with coughing and sniffling my way around and anyway, there’s work to be done!

I’m off to Ennis tomorrow as part of the Devil in the Red Dress push…more book signing and interviews in a quick round trip.  Last time I was there I was researching the book, this time it’s published and on the shelves.

There’s less pressure this time round but it’s still a busy enough schedule…why the train trip needs two changes I will never understand!  Plenty of people want to go to Ennis, why do they make it so awkward to get there?

Still I’m looking forward to it.  It’s a pretty little town, not to mention the fact it’s the setting for my action…I’m also taking the opportunity to catch up with some friends so it’ll be fun.

In between interviews this week I’ve been trying to make some headway into the whole Christmas palaver.  The Christmas windows have been up for the last couple of weeks and as usual they’re light years away from the fairytale visions that used to make a trip in to go Christmas shopping so much fun years ago.  It’s something that bugs me every year.

Back then you could go and look at the windows for Brown Thomas, Clerys or the Daddy of them all, Switzers and see moving puppets telling a Christmas story.  These days it’s all about making a stylish buck.  The shop owners won’t give the hard sell a rest for a couple of weeks during a season when people will always go shopping regardless.

It all changed several years ago when Switzers closed down and Brown Thomas took over.  The Switzers window used to be famous.  It would be unveiled without much pomp at around the same time as the Christmas lights went up on Grafton Street.

First look would always be at night.  I can remember stopping on my way home from a night out when I was in my twenties and the window was there in all it’s glory.  There were a few of us there and we all stopped and listened to the Christmas tunes belting out across the icy street and walked slowly along the length of the shop watching the animated story unfold in each successive window.

There were dozens of people there by the time we got to the last window.  Everyone was smiling and talking and laughing and it was suddenly just that little bit closer to Christmas and a little bit of cynicism had melted away.

Those days are long gone now though.  In these times of economic uncertainty I notice that even the more ornate displays carry price tags (once banished for the festive period).  Arnotts on Henry St has probably made the best effort with a miniature city glowing around the designer clad dummies.

Brown Thomas, where the Switzers windows used to be is this  year just a celebration of consumerism.  Maybe I’m being needlessly nostalgic but I think it’s sad that those windows are consigned to an Ireland long gone.  The Celtic Tiger has died or is at least in serious decline, it would have been nice to see shop owners do something just for the fun of it…something to make the kids happy and make it seem a little more like Christmas.

A gesture like that might even encourage more people into their shops than dangling shiny goods in front of their noses that will just put more strain on the credit card.

Now ok, this Christmas I’d rather people concentrated on buying books (I have a vested interest after all) but I miss the Christmas windows and I’d like to see them back!  Who’s with me?

I had an interesting conversation last night.  I had been out with friends at the Mont Clare Hotel on Merrion Square in Dublin but had to do a radio interview with Near FM. The folks at reception very kindly allowed me to take the call at the porters desk and everything went off swimmingly.

I was talking for around half an hour…I don’t think I let Pat, the presenter much of a look in, but Devil got a good plug.

It was only afterwards when I got talking to the girl on reception that another trial I have talked about here came up.  No matter what I talk about, the Finn Colclough trial keeps coming back into the frame.

Anyway it turned out that she had known the victim in that trial, Sean Nolan.  Obviously covering a high profile trial where there are a lot of press, there’s not really an opportunity to talk to the people involved…not that they’d want to anyway while the trial is going on.

We were talking about the trial and the eventual manslaughter verdict.  It was interesting to talk to someone with a personal involvement.  It’s easy to be too glib about these things when you cover them as a news story.  If we didn’t have the remove we wouldn’t be able to do our jobs but it does mean you can have too much of a remove sometimes.

I can totally understand how hard it was for the Nolan family to accept the manslaughter verdict.  Even if I might think myself that, given the evidence in the trial it was probably the only verdict the jury were likely to return, for them it’s never going to be any less raw than it was the day they heard the news.

I can’t imagine how any mother could deal with the loss that Charlotte Nolan has had to deal with, the loss of her younger son on the night he finished secondary school.  That’s something you can never forget and that will never get any easier to come to terms with.

It’s always interesting to meet someone who’s been personally touched by a story I’ve written about. Because no matter how much I might empathise, no matter how much compassion I might have the the victim or the accused, I’m always going to be at a remove, standing on the outside of the case observing it as it unfolds.

That’s just the nature of the job, but I can understand that others see the remove as unnatural or perverse in some way.  I might want to understand, to feel something to understand it better, but that will always be from a writer’s point of view and that means being on the outside.

I can see by the number of people who read my coverage of the Colclough trial, how raw a nerve this trial has struck.  It’s understandable, even if I might sometimes wish that more came looking for the book than for Finn Colclough and Sean Nolan.  There was something about that trial that made it different, it’s rare to see such a stark tragedy even amongst the daily litany of tragedies that makes up the day to day business of the Central Criminal Court.

I’m not sure how much I’ll be blogging next week.  I’m off down to Ennis again at the start of the week and I might be out of coverage.  More signings and interviews though…the book needs to be sold!