About

When I started this blog in 23 February 2013 I had certain aims:

I had in mind to raise my writing profile and also to reach out to the Far Eastern Prisoner of War researchers in the hope of finding some of the families of the men who served with my father. I have letters from relatives of these men. I also wanted a sort of notepad for thoughts about fiction and for updates about my publishing hopes and woes. I will inevitably talk about my passion for opera and my current reading and keep a diary of progress and plans in the garden and mark my development on the Lindy Hopping front. Lastly, I suppose, I should update my non-progress on relearning the piano.

After six months I wrote:

I don’t think my writing profile has risen. I have made contact with WWII researchers, but none with the relatives of my father’s men. I have posted some thoughts about fiction, but I see that some major concerns have never made it from draft to publication (drafts headed ‘Guilt’ and ‘Writers’ responsibilities’ are unpublished). Reading, opera and gardening, especially the latter, have had lots of my attention. Lindy Hopping and Piano have disappeared. I still Lindy Hop, but the piano is gathering dust. However the crucial factor is that I have not been working on my writing. I write posts using snatched moments and garden and run the house etc much of the time. As I wrote my first novel in snatched moments, I can’t pretend this is not writing time. I must now return to the three manuscripts.

After eighteen months I wrote:

I have republished my second novel Unseen Unsung (Threadgold Press 2008) as an ebook and I am in the process of publishing my third novel, Border Line, which will be available on December 5th 2014. I have started moving the material from my website hilarycustancegreen.com to my WordPress site, so this will change a bit.

It is now coming up for two years see aims 2015

And another year has passed see aims 2016

The years roll on see aims 2017 for recent progress

44 thoughts on “About”

  4. Thanks for the like on my post of Lake Boga Flying Boat Museum. I intend to do a further post on Catalinas just as soon as I have the time to collate the various bits of info and photos I have been provided. Hope you enjoy that one too.

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  5. Hi Ms. Green, your site’s got beautiful design and such interesting pieces, so I’m following! 🙂
    Feel free to check out my writing about publishing: publishinginsights.org
    Sherry

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  6. Hello Hilary…I’ve ordered the e-version of your latest book. Am really looki ng forward to learning about Slovenia, but also am most interested in the questions around suicide. My old eyes prefer books made from trees, so it will take me a while to read it but I expect to enjoy!

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    • Cynthia, you are so kind. I was scheming how to get A Certain Age as print. I have a daughter in Chicago and we will be going there in September, so I planned to get her to order it. I do read about half my books on an iPad (since July last year) – but not poetry. I need to move freely among poems, it’s very three-dimensional.

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  8. Nice to meet you, and thank you for finding me over at roughwighting. Blogging regularly does take a lot of time, but I’ve found it to be extremely useful and even a wonderful part of my writing life. Each post we write is ….writing. And I’m determined to write every day, whether for my blog, or for the creative writing classes I teach, or for my next novel. Sometimes the novel takes third place, and that’s the most frustrating thing that I’m trying to change. Keep up the good work!

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  11. Thanks for ‘liking’ my post! I love your ‘About Page’. I wish I could have your discipline. That is the one thing I am working on!

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  13. Thank you so much for stopping by my blog to like a post! It is nice to meet you and explore your very interesting blog. It seems you have come a long way with your writing and have great plans for 2016. Congratulations of your success so far! I will enjoy exploring your blog.

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    • Thank you. It has taken many slow years to get to this point. I find that a blog is a grown-up version of the self-challenge. If, as a child, I said I would do something in front of people, then I was committed to actually doing it. I love exploring blogs such as yours, but I find time more and more of a challenge… it is already half an hour after I resolved to switch off the computer.

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  14. I took your book A Small Rain of off of my bookshelf and found you had signed it to me. I can’t remember for the life of me where I met you? Did you get to Hay -on -wye book festival?. as when I lived in the U.K. my son and I went there often Maureen

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    • Hello Maureen, A Small Rain did not get very much exposure when it was published and I didn’t get to Hay-on-Wye. It is lovely to hear that you have a signed copy and we must therefore have met. If it has a rainbow on the cover then it comes from the Ipswich launch (the chaotic publisher’s first edition had this cover plus a 1000 errors in the text). If the cover is simply clouds and sky, then it could be Taunton or Cambridge or Kent (and hopefully a copy with fewer errors). Thank you so much for getting in touch, it is heartwarming to know that my first book has travelled widely. It has long been out of print.

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  15. Oh, my. You do so many things!!! Writing novels takes so much time that I don’t know how you find time to blog about Lindy Hopping or anything. Thanks so much for following Oh, the Places We See. Hopefully, you’ll just relax and enjoy our travels. Looking forward to reading more of what you post.

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  17. Hi Hilary…. The hardcover version of SURVIVING THE DEATH RAILWAY arrived here this week. I am reading the front matter and looking at the photos. Since I was born in 1944, it is of course interesting to know about the times. My Dad was in the US naval air corps. Just now, though, this is the kind of subject and detail of that past time which it is somehow difficult for me to get motivated to explore. I will read slowly, methodically, a bit at a time. I’m glad your format has given us shorter chapters, and I’m sure I will really get into it, once I get into it. Thank you for all your hard work to make this come to be. I’ll comment further when I know what I’m talking about!

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    • Dear Cynthia, there is no need to read it at all. You have contributed to these men and women’s memories simply by buying the book. Donate it to the local library or charity shop. This is not a subject that should be forced on anyone. In fact it has been an ethical dilemma for me. I have enough information about all the people in the book to have tracked their families down, but I didn’t feel I had the right to invade descendants lives and tell them about their forbears distress, or even their courage. I feel completely different about people who are looking for information and answers about their relatives, this was one of my main reasons for getting on social media and talking about the story. I have met some relatives and that has been great. So relax, give yourself a big tick for getting the book and drop it quietly somewhere else.

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      • I have made it a practice to buy the books written by fellow bloggers whom I follow, like, and respect, though I can’t say I have thoroughly enjoyed every one of them. I’m happy to support and salute the scary, labor intensive enterprise I know that publishing represents. I’m going to keep DEATH RAILWAY on my table of reading for awhile and continue to dip into it. Then, we’ll see. (I am glad to have your permission not to force things.) Even if I do read the whole of it, I will donate it…as I do, now, with many of my books. Even with the convenience of e-reading, real books—at least so far— still seem to have their magic. You just never know who will come across a book, pick it up, and find something in it to answer a longing.
        Like all good projects, this must have been a life altering work for you, Hilary. I truly admire you for it.

  18. Hi Hilary…just came upon your blog after finding Cynthia Jobin’s site…after reading a tribute to her from one of her followers. I’m so sad to have met her after she has passed. I simply adore her poetry. I thought I would investigate some of her followers’ blogs as we must have common ground having all enjoyed her work.
    I hope you will stop by my blog sometime for a visit.
    Love your Jap Maples! We’ve recently moved to the Low Country of South Carolina which is marshland…makes gardening a real challenge. I miss my old garden tremendously…especially my Japanese Maples.
    We have planted some here but thus far most have not made it. It’s just so hot and humid for so long 😦
    Hoping I will get the handle on gardening in a large bog.

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    • Hi Norton, I’m so glad you have found Cynthia’s poetry. It is really special and enhanced by her lovely readings. It can be tricky gardening in a location different from the conditions you are used to. We have been here forty years now and I have to admit there have been lots of gardening failures along the way. Yet gardens are kind and always willing to have another go as you try and find out what suits them. I do love my maples, but for the first ten years I failed with many of them. I often keep them in pots – even some of the ones that look as though they are in the ground. We are very dry and rather too alkaline in this corner of the UK! Best of luck with your bog, I hope you find some beauties to fill it.

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      • Norton is one of my kitties 🙂 He says “hi” back and appreciates the acknowledgment…He was tree’d by a couple of dogs a few years back and wrote this very nice note along with his photo offering a mouse (it wasn’t hurt in the making of the card) to the nice firemen who got him out of the very tall tree he was wedged in.
        He is quite a bit chunky (shall we say) and got wedged in an elbow of a rather large poplar tree. He wasn’t feeling very popular at that time. In fact, he was quite embarrassed.
        Oh, my blog name is Willow but you may call me Vicki.
        Wow…dry and alkaline in the UK? that is so not what I imagine and certainly not the favorite choice for maples.
        Creation is always full of surprises. Hopefully, our garden will surprise us soon. I can always plant Venus Flytraps

      • Hello Vicki, sorry about promoting Norton to an unsuitable job as a blog writer! Yes, this corner of the UK is not standard issue, though climate change is making the rainfall even less predictable. Look forward to garden news.

  19. Hillary, I am looking forward to getting to know you better. I have met a lot of writers since I started blogging but never another opera fan. I would like to invite you to join us over at the Senior Salon on Wednesdays to share your talents.

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