Winchester Cathedral and Jane Austen

It's a beautiful sunny day in March, and I've just landed in England. I made it through customs and caught the train to Winchester, where a friend met me. She knew immediately what I would want to see first: Winchester Cathedral, the place where Jane Austen is buried.

It was after 4:00 PM when we started the self-guided tour, and even my jet-lagged brain could appreciate the beauty of the afternoon light coming through the stained glass windows. Sometime I might do a blog post just on the stained glass I saw in England--I have even more pictures of that than I do of the willows.

The various altar pieces were beautiful. This one in particular struck me, with the gilded paintings and the beautiful masonry.

After seeing the cathedral in all it's glory, you finally come to Jane's grave. This is the actual stone marking where she is buried. I still find it a little odd to think of people being buried inside a building--can anyone explain this to me? I realize it was something of an honor, as not just anyone gets space beneath the transept, but beyond that...?

(Please forgive the slightly blurred picture--the batteries in my camera were dying.)

Jane's gravestone makes no mention of her writing--it's simply a commemoration by her family and friends of a life well lived. It wasn't until several years later that this plaque was erected on the wall of the cathedral, honoring "Jane Austen, known to many by her writings..." Above the plaque is a gorgeous stained glass window of St. Augustine, as Austen is an abbreviated form of Augustine. (I do have pictures of the window, but they turned out even worse than the pictures of the stone and the plaque.)

I find it a little ironic that my first stop in England was Jane's last. I don't attach any great symbolic meaning to that, but I know my trip over all grounded me more in her life and her way of thinking. The chapters I've written since I've come back have flowed more easily, with less time wondering how exactly something would work.

Visiting a grave site leaves you with a greater appreciation for what the person accomplished in her life. Jane Austen didn't live long--she was only 41 when she died. But in those short years, she created six of the most-loved novels in modern English, and she left us with numerous remnants and pieces of juvenilia. She worked hard at her writing, frequently sitting for hours a time at her little writing table. That kind of consistency and dedication inspired me to do the same.

If you could visit the grave of one person, whose would you choose and why? What lessons would you take away from the trip?

The Big Picture

On my first morning in Winchester, the proprietor of my bed and breakfast recommended I walk up a small hill that overlooks the city. Even though in the back of my mind I was thinking, "I really don't have time--I have to see the cathedral and the house where Jane Austen died and-and-and," I took her advice. 

When I reached the top, I could see why she'd suggested it. The entire city of Winchester spread before me in a gorgeous panorama. I could see the back of the cathedral, the ruins of the old Bishop's Palace, Winchester College, and so much more. That first overview of the city helped me understand where exactly I was when I wandered the streets later.

On January 1, I picked up a hard copy of my draft and started editing--or at least I tried to. I didn't get past the first page before the sheer enormity of the task struck me. There was no way I could read through this story and edit it. I could barely remember what happened in the middle.

After some thought, I put the entire file on my Kindle. I spent the next three weeks reading it and taking notes, which I've then used to guide the editing process. Going through the story from start to finish allowed me to see the big picture; now, when I'm editing, I know where I am in the story and I don't get lost.

I blogged last Monday about paying attention to the details, and that's important. However, as writers we can become a little myopic--so obsessed with what is going on right now in our stories that we fail to see how that fits into the whole.

So if your editing is giving you grief, why don't you join me on this hill? I guarantee you, the view from here is worth it.