Jay Stritch is a student of English Literature at Cambridge University and a lover of all modes of storytelling. She has recently published ‘Seven Minutes’ told in the format of memory collections which trace the interweaving, highly eventful lives of a very interesting family. In her free time she enjoys skiing and adrenaline based sports.
Author Links -
- Seven Minutes eBook: Jay Stritch: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seven-Minutes-Jay-Stritch-ebook/dp/B00J1KPAKU/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395072865&sr=1-1&keywords=seven+minutes+jay+stritch
- http://www.amazon.com/author/jaystritch
- http://www.shelfari.com/books/37407403/Seven-Minutes
Seven Minutes
by Jay Stritch
Book Genre: FictionPublisher: -Release Date: March 2014
Book Description:
What are the memories that will define you when you're gone?
It is said that when you die your brain stays active for seven minutes, in which time you relive your most prominent memories.
'The Collector' of these memories has the most interesting story of all to tell. By following the intertwining lives of a group of characters we are taken on a journey through some amazing experiences: loss, love, guilt, failure, success and what defines us as human beings. The very essence of these people emerges from their memories.
But why is Will the one this collection of memories has been given to? What is he supposed to do with them? He already has enough on his plate, now that he’s unemployed with a farm and family to run while his wife is away working. However, he can’t seem to stop obsessing about this mysterious book or put it down and it begins to affect his life in more ways than one…
Excerpt:Seven minutes really isn’t that long. It’s often overlooked by people as an awkward amount of time in which nothing can be achieved. Indeed many groups of seven minutes are spent in people’s lives simply waiting. I, however, am a collector and it is my job to make every minute count. Everything can be revealed about a human life in seven minutes. Today has been a particularly interesting collection, as amongst them is the last Mangos.
I often look at my job like a card game – perhaps similar to ‘Happy Families’ – and I relish collecting full sets. Today the set has been completed by the life and death of Sabina Mangos.
I sometimes revisit the rest of these preserved lives and watch them intertwine with each other seamlessly again. I turn to the best bits, like one would dog ear a favorite book. Still the people I never knew in life haunt me in their deaths.
She is bent by the side of the river, the evening sun illuminating her cheek bones and her hair is plastered to her face. The memory at first is always startlingly beautiful until the scream begins. It is primal, guttural and echoes off the rocks surrounding her. Then the boy lying limp at her feet comes into focus. But this is my own memory. To understand it better, it’s only right that we delve into hers.ANGELICA: 4.6 minutes
He died with his train ticket in his pocket and his hands clasped tightly around his necklace. I know because I was there. I start compressions frantically, unable to remember how many to do. One, two, three, four, trying to force the life back into him. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, my own breaths rasping, willing him to join me. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, I stop pressing methodically, the panic taking over and I begin to hit him wildly. Suddenly I am furious, illogically furious at him, and I begin to spit and swear as I return to compressions.
What else can I do?
“Don’t die! Wake up! Bastard! Talk to me! Open your eyes now!” I stop suddenly staring rigidly at his face. “No,” is all I can think. This. Can’t. Happen. Mouth to mouth, my mind screams, I haven’t tried that yet and I know why. What if the kiss of life doesn’t work; what if it is the kiss of death? What if I can’t save him? I slam my hands either side of his head, pinch his nose and calmly breathe into his mouth. Once. Twice. Nothing. And that is when I rock back on to my knees and scream.spotlight
Stop. Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see.
- What is your name?Jay Stritch
- What is your quest?Not to be on the surface, to get under the skin of what makes us human and be brave enough to write that down. Quite a quest...it may take a lifetime to complete.
- What is your favorite color?Green.
Just kidding, there are more than 3 questions.
Which orifice did you pull this story from (from whence did the inspiration come)?Mainly from stories my mother told me as a child. I always needed a story to coax me into things, she would tell me stories of her family’s life and her adventures in a boarding school. So as I grew up I had snippets of past lives floating about in my head and then one day they all ganged up and demanded to be written down.
What was the most difficult thing about writing Seven Minutes?There were a lot of characters and I really wanted the differences and similarities between them to be clear while each person maintained a distinct identity and way of being. It can be a challenge (a welcome one) to try and get into the mindset of all of them. I also really wanted to show how differently we are seen through the eyes of those in our lives and at different times in our lives e.g. your child’s view and knowledge of you will be completely different to your best friend when you were fifteen. I think that’s a really interesting topic that you are always essentially yourself but are perceived differently.
What was something you learned while writing Seven Minutes?It sounds silly but a book doesn’t write itself! A lot of planning and hard work goes in between the initial idea and final product.
What do you love the most about Seven Minutes?What I love most about the novel is that it feels very personal. When I wrote it I didn’t have an agenda, just a story to tell. Stupidly it sort of shocked me when I heard that people were actually reading it! It’s a strange gap between writing and publishing where suddenly it’s not just you and these characters anymore...you’ve freed them and you don’t know how others will react to them, scary. But it’s wonderful when they resonate with others too.
What do you hate the most about Seven Minutes?
This is an excellent question because I have yet to meet an author who at some level doesn’t hate their own work. This is probably because it is impossible to write honestly and well without revealing a little bit of your soul on most pages and this can be painful. The things about yourself that you don’t like are suddenly there, strikingly clear, on the page before you and worse still you’re encouraging other people to read them! So you sit and cringe for a while, but then you force yourself to get up, make a tea and face the world again.
Give us your favorite blurb (paragraph/scene) from the story.The story is told by a collector of memories. I particularly like the Collectors various musings on life, love and the characters that are the focus of the story such as this moment:“However, we now go to more adult issues: love and such. A puzzling concept, and in all my years on the job I have heard many different definitions of the phenomenon but one of my best belongs in this story and is Jack’s definition. Angelica, in her need for a logical explanation to things, had questioned him on how you could explain the feeling of love and he had replied that love is like the biting point of a car’s engine. You can’t really explain it and it can only occur if everything is just right and people only really understand it when they’re feeling it. I like that.”
What are your future plans as an author?I have been writing away in my writer’s cave and have just published my next novel: ‘On The Rocks With A Twist’ which is a story about murder, university and not playing by the rules.
The Avid Reader - Hardest thing about character development?
This is a great topic because any writer worth their salt has to capture characters who develop, who are changed by the world they live in, their experiences and the people around them. Because this is true to life, you can never write someone off (pun intended) as simply ‘the funny one’, or as someone who is ‘evil’ and that can be a dangerous trap to fall in to.
A human being is like a diamond- multi faceted. If you met someone later on in their lives or before a key event it might feel like you are talking to a completely different person, the light has changed and the angle (to continue the diamond metaphor) and now something very different in them may be illuminated. With this in mind I think that it is very important whenever you are writing to remember the whole person, who they were and all that has happened to them so that they are never just one thing and never just who they are at the point of the story you are writing.
The hardest thing about character development is probably to stay consistent while allowing your characters to grow and change. I know, I know this is something of an oxymoron but it is essential that a character retain their identity even if their beliefs or attitudes change.
In order to do this we must ask the question-what is identity. There are many answers but I think the most useful ones are our natural inclinations. The qualities (good or bad) that we are born with, for example drive, compassion, imagination-the essentials of that person which are shaped and harnessed by their circumstances.
This is going to be oversimplified but it’s just an example: So to try and explain what I mean a little more coherently let’s take a character that is naturally and quintessentially a restless spirit with a drive to achieve. If I follow these qualities from childhood in my character, he is active, strives for more than prescribed by his system but then who he becomes depends on where I place him in the real world. Let’s place him, for example, as an explorer-these qualities thrive-he lives on the edge, he never stays in one place and his adventures quench his restlessness and he develops into a man who lives in the moment, who shares his wisdom and is most content by campfire light sharing ideas and inspiration about life. O.k. now let’s scrap that and go back to our boy imbued with just these essential qualities, bright as a button and just about to venture out into the real world. Now let’s trap him in a dead end office job. Here no one appreciates him, his ambitions and ideas are given a very low roof, his restlessness increase and he can’t be satisfied with what he has. He wants so much from life but feels as if he has nothing. This develops to bitterness, and slowly we can guide him along a darker path where he feels a sense of entitlement to what should have been his. We now could have the beginnings of the potential killer in our story.
But both of these choices (the way we choose to develop the character) are true to who he is even though the two outcomes may be very different.
I hope what I was trying to get at made sense and resonated with you as a reader/writer/human!3 Partners In Shopping - What inspires you to write.
It’s tricky to answer what inspires me to write because it changes. But here are my top 3:1. Emotion.
I think what it all boils down to is a feeling. I find I write best when I’m hurt by something the world has thrown at me that day because emotion charges you, it fuels you with a need to share your experience and to reach out to others who may feel the same way. In this regard that is as powerful inspiration as any-your own feelings.2. Observation
In the quiet moments of life, the most unexpected places like on a train or when you’re lost in an unknown city suddenly, now and then you see behaviour so human or hear a conversation or have an observation so brilliant that you have to write it down. This is organic inspiration, the lighting strike, the light bulb wonderfully effortless as the idea/scene or dialogue hits you from an outside force.3. Stories
I have a deep love of stories, of the individual’s plight, of how a mind ticks, of desires and what people will do to get what they want. It‘s part of our condition to need to share stories and to want insight into the extraordinary lives that have been lived. It doesn’t take much to ignite the imagination and writing gives you such a wonderful freedom to experience anything. When writing you suddenly have no limitations, you have the power to let an adventure unfold, allow a romance to develop or to make the impossible plausible in a way you never can in your own life. I think handing someone this freedom and saying ‘go ahead!’ ‘Anything can happen!’ leads to inspiration because there are no boundaries.Rejection is never a walk in the park no matter what your friends, family or any other advice gurus you have in your life say it doesn’t always feel like it ‘makes you stronger.’ In fact it can feel a lot closer to breaking your spirit into tiny little shards and then leaping up and down on them singing ‘I hate everything about you.’ However, rejection is inevitable every author (even the most successful ones-we’ve all heard the stories) have been rejected. Whenever you put yourself out on a limb, lay your soul on the line in life rejection is a definite possibility. But the fact that you are willing to take that risk means you’re already half way there-Congratulations. That in itself is bravery and hard work. Also remember that it is a hell of a lot easier to tear something apart then to build it and commend yourself on being one of the creators.How to avoid the rejection blues:
Don’t be afraid of self publishing, why should someone else get to set themselves up as judge and jury and terminate your ideas? If you’re struggling to get published take control and go down another avenue. Life’s too short to hold back the story you have to tell!
Dealing with bad reviews: Now, take something as simple as food, everyone has a different taste a different palate and a delicious meal for one person may turn the stomach of another. Remember no matter what people have to say about your work it is subjective and if someone didn’t like it that is their problem. You have done the work and put it out there to share with the rest of the world what people do after that is up to them.
That being said, remember to rejoice your successes be that a good review or achieving target sales. The book industry is over saturated and to get noticed at all is a great step.5 favourite authors and why (In no particular order)
Donna Tartt- For the dark way her stories wind themselves into your heart. She is wonderfully unpredictable even when she’s told you the ending at the beginning and this is truly a talent, to compel a reader purely with the way in which events unfold. Her writing stays with you a long time after you’ve finished the last page. The words and characters hang eerily in the air around you still and continue to tug at your heart and mind.Chimamanda Adiche- Not only is she brilliantly funny and a great writer, her TED talk: the danger of a single story is one of the best I have seen. I love that her writing can bring Africa, the smell, the heat the atmosphere right into the room with you and I also love that she opened my eyes. She made me realised that we in the west really do grow up only learning one story about Africa and it is refreshing, insightful and educational to read of people you can relate to, who you grow to love who represent modern day Africa. Not only this but she is a wonderful story teller and balances her message within a gripping read.Melina Marchetta- Is my favourite YA author expressly because she doesn’t write for young adults. She writes for human beings who are struggling with life, identity and family. Her Fantasy series not only grabs you for the adventure and kingdoms which we are introduced to but because it has a heart. Her characters are so real that you miss them when you stop reading, she gives everyone a story, a past, and suffering, love, potential, redemption until your heart aches and you can’t take anymore. A true master.Leo Tolstoy- Nothing is too great or small for this writer to bring to life, an advocate of literature and the arts being about emotion rather than style he can capture the inner life of all. Whether he is writing from the point of view of the scolded child, the wronged husband or the woman in love he captures truth and human nature in all its ridiculousness and poignancy.Virginia Woolf-Where to start? To me she perfectly captures the way human thought works, one of the first and best examples of the use of stream of consciousness is ‘To The Lighthouse.’ With deftness and ease she portrays how in a moment we may have so many feelings, opinions and desires and say none of them. The way she compellingly shows this discrepancy between the surface of our interactions and what is occurring underneath is genius.Starting out as a writer 3 things you should know:
1. No one is going to read your bookBare with me, I’m not trying to be cynical or mean I promise. I just want to save you from my initial blunders when publishing. It is so easy to believe that as soon as you publish people will find, and read your book as if by magic. This is not how it works I’m afraid, there is a lot of hard work surrounding the marketing of a book and this should start before you press publish and sit there with your fingers crossed puzzling over why the sales bar hasn’t risen over the week you’ve been sitting there.2. Don’t let harsh critics get to youEveryone has an opinion. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. And almost everyone believes that their opinion is right. Inevitably this means that some people won’t like your writing and may be very vocal on this point. Don’t crumple to the ground, assume the foetal position and start rocking. Take a breath, read it again and try to see what they’re saying, see if there is anything useful you can take from their negatives. And then wait until you get another positive review and ying and yang (as well as your sanity) has been restored.3. Enjoy the writing processIt really is the best bit and so it’s important not to lose sight of the reason you’re doing this. It’s easy to get caught up in worries about sales and figures but remember to strip it all back to your love of storytelling. Believe you have something important to share with the rest of us and allow your characters to breathe, make the most of the time when it’s purely imaginative and you’re in that slightly removed place reserved for those who don’t live in the ‘real world’ 24/7. Allow yourself to be an author without worrying about book sales for a while!5 things you didn’t know about Seven Minutes
- -It is based on the lives of real people.
- -There is research to suggest that the books concept is real (the brain staying active for seven minutes after a person dies)
- -It was originally entitled ‘The Collector’
- -It tracks the entire lives of six characters over three generations and spans three different countries somehow managing to tie all of these stories together.
- -It is very hard to place in a genre which sucks for marketing but keeps an air of mystery around it.
The best environment for Writing:
Someone asked me this the other day assuming that peace and quiet were the key factors to a productive days writing. The truth is once I was alone away from home for a week, no yelling, arguing, cooking or cats sitting on my keyboard-it was wonderful and I got hardly anything done.
The thing is that in order to write about life, life has to be going on around you. Your mind should be racing, people should be interacting and evoking feeling within you because it is a living problem. I’m not saying that I don’t tear my hair out when someone can’t fix the T.V in the next room and is yelling my name for an impressively long time before I answer because I’m trying to write. But the strange thing is that all this fills you up, and in order to write well it’s no good shutting out your life because that closes off your senses and reactions. In order to imbue your characters with life you must surround yourself with life....Having said all this if someone offered me a complimentary writer’s retreat I probably wouldn’t say no!
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