Chasing Fog Book Club: Chapter 3

niwl

Meirionnydd (a colour version of the chapter opener)

Hello again, welcome to Chasing Fog Book Club!

I’m focusing on one chapter of my book each month. Each chapter of the book is set in a different foggy place, looks at a type of fog, and is guided by a sense. If you missed the previous chapters, you’ll find them here. This is Chapter Three, which is set in Meirionnydd, features a type of fog called niwl, and is guided by the sense of direction. Here I am on a hilltop, reading you a section of this chapter. There’s some wind noise in the background, but if you listen closely, you’ll also hear the crows and the skylarks.

The location for ‘Lost in the Fog’, Chasing Fog’s second chapter was inspired by a children’s book — the fourth of Susan Cooper’s fantasy books in The Dark is Rising sequence — The Grey King. I read these novels to my eldest son when he was younger, and found myself fascinated by Cooper’s folkloric influences, and the way in which she evokes both time and place so powerfully. The king of the book’s title, the Brenin Llwyd is a fog-weaving mythological monarch who makes his home at the top of the Welsh mountain, Cadair Idris. When I began writing about fog, I remembered this king, and felt compelled to go in search of him.

It was a chill January weekend when I set off for Meirionnydd, staying with my husband in a red railway guard’s van, halfway up a wooded hillside, as we prepared to climb the mountain. I had delved into the myth of the Brenin Llwyd and in doing so, I discovered other folkloric figures hiding in the mist. My focus for this chapter was on getting lost in the fog, but in thinking about the lost, there was much to be found — ravens, fair folk, a modern-day mystic, an eerie underwater bell.

My hope for you, the reader is that as you read, you too will glimpse those shadowy figures in the mist, and you will be reminded of what it is to feel lost. But more importantly, I hope that you will be drawn towards some of the many wonders that are out there, waiting to be found.

In the writing of this chapter I unearthed unexpected feelings — I found myself changed by my experiences on the mountain. At the end of the chapter, still looking for fog, I came across a clear but unexpected message where I least expected it.

Writing Prompt:

‘There is another way of getting lost – a conscious way which involves choosing to lose yourself to a place or experience. Rebecca Solnit calls this voluntary surrender ‘a psychic state achievable through geography’.’

Have you ever felt this sensation?

Where were you, and what was it that you chose to lose yourself to?

If you could seek out this kind or experience anywhere, or with anyone, where would you go?

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I’ll be answering a couple of Q&A questions each month This month’s are:

How do you balance writing and life? Do you have a set schedule?

My creative week is squeezed into four short days, to fit around my part-time job in a lovely indie bookshop and my children’s school days (I have three sons, two of them teens). It’s not until everyone else has left the house that my own workday begins.

Balance for me often elusive, but if I do find it, it’s at the still point at the start of my working day where I can find space for my thoughts. I always begin with writing—a couple of days a week I take part in a ‘Mothers Who Write’ writers hour via Zoom. I do some of my best work in those hours; there’s a strange alchemy in working alongside others.

When I’m working on a book, as I am now, I have to write in every spare moment, and even when I’m not writing, my head is often whirring with ideas. I collect these as voice notes, ready for the next time I can make it to my desk.

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I’ve created a community space for conversation about this chapter, please head over and join us:

You can find out more about Chasing Fog in this month’s issue of BBC Countryfile magazine.

Thank you for reading along. If you have read and enjoyed Chasing Fog, I’d be so grateful if you’d take a moment to leave a review — they really help.

Laura

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