On Writing Tales From Chez Jacques
The written word is fundamental to my life. Since childhood I’ve been a voracious reader and a prolific writer. Stories, poems, diaries. I must have been about 8 or 9 when I wrote my first ‘book’.
I don’t search for inspiration for my writing, it just presents itself in the form of characters who take up residence in my mind and tell me their stories as I go about my daily life. Sometimes I recognise them as shadows of people I’ve encountered, others simply arrive from wherever in my brain it is that nurtures my creativity. Once they get into my head I have to get into theirs. And then the fun starts! I introduce them to each other and their stories begin to evolve.
I was searching for a different life when I moved from the heights of the trendy West End of Glasgow to the depths of rural France. A new language and culture and a wealth of diverse experiences to write about.
I’m at my most creative when I’m active and while working the land as a small smallholder, characters, human and canine, began to flourish along with the crops. Not all my beginnings led to endings, and not all the characters held my interest but Marie France, a feisty shepherd and her border collie Galla clicked immediately and became the main female protagonists throughout the series. Eventually, my somewhat muddy jottings blossomed into Tales From Chez Jacques. The photophobic cover girl and dedicatee of the first book, Away Tae Me, is the role model for Galla, the main canine protagonist.
My tales are not all plucked out of the air, far from it. As I’ve mentioned, I’m a voracious reader, so research comes naturally. Any excuse to buy a book about whatever subject, I want to explore in more depth! And village life, so different from the anonymity of a bustling city, presented me with plenty of stimulating material.
She passed the Forail, turned right into a small street of buildings like the one she was staying in, three or four storeys high, a pharmacy on the corner, next to the Doctor’s surgery, one or two offices. Rab’s disembodied voice continued to accompany her. It was so clear that she surreptitiously looked around, wondering if anyone else could hear him.
‘Never been in the pharmacy, never needed to, thank goodness, but the woman there always gives me a ‘bonjour’ nod if she sees me. Never needed the doctor next door either, but the village was pleased when he arrived. Quite recently. He’s married with two young kids. The village is always pleased to get newcomers who will keep it alive. Like us.’
It was no hardship to spend time in café bars, improving my language skills by chatting with the other customers and all the time observing the cultural differences, particularly in relation to social interaction. Jacques, the proprietor of my fictional café bar, evolved from a composite of shadows of bar tenders I’ve known over my imbibing years.
Jacques took Jacqui and Angelo around the bar to greet the clientele, as they’d been brought up to do. The elder boy, at nearly eleven years old, shook the hands of the men, presented his cheek for a kiss from the females. Angelo, his joyful excitement uncontainable, giggled and kissed and hugged everyone.
A commemorative plaque in the village for 2 young men gunned down by the milice, a political paramilitary organization created to assist in the fight against the Resistance during World War 2, heightened my awareness that I was living in a country that had been occupied. I tentatively broached the subject and was gratified at how eagerly my neighbours shared their memories with me. Many of these true life reminiscences found their way into my fiction.
Monsieur Roumignac reserved a special venom for the milice, the treacherous Frenchmen paid by the enemy to punish their own kind, inconceivable to an honest, straightforward man like himself. His wife continued softly, sadly, to give her husband’s anger a chance to subside.
‘Christophe, as you know dear, always made it clear that he’s all his mother has left and for that reason alone, he would not become actively involved in the resistance. Well, it was his door they knocked on. The lad, understandably, was suspicious about someone calling late at night and came to the door with the poker in his hand. They shot him down in cold blood before he even had a chance to show his identity card.’
Although I write in English I often find I’m thinking in French and I use translated French idioms to try and incorporate a flavour of the language. Some examples
‘The other son, Angelo, was a different pair of sleeves altogether.’
‘Lost your date? Joe asked, never one to dance around the cooking pot unless he was in the kitchen.’
‘And the sun on the terrace was that the business the cousins had talked about since forever was about to take off.’
TALES FROM CHEZ JACQUES
Everyone’s life is a story.
Tales From Chez Jacques, a series inspired by the café culture in rural France, tells the interwoven stories of people connected to the café-bar in the village of Labeille. Jacques Luciani, the proprietor. Marie-France, an unconventional shepherd. Rab McPherson, the man she’s come to live with. The locals. The Luciani family, past and present. And many more.
Welcome to Chez Jacques.
CHECK OUT THE SERIES HERE
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Category: On Writing
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