It's the end of 2014 and I am looking out of my hotel window at bright sunshine over Hong Kong. I have a number of thoughts at the end of the year but, for this blog, I'll concentrate on writing.
My big discovery this year was that I am a lot more comfortable writing stories in the 6-8000 word range than attempting novels. My life has been improved by this discovery because it has allowed me to concentrate on specific short projects with a tight focus.
Secondly, I have found myself writing stories I did not expect to write. I am forming a linked series of stories set in a world which continues to evolve in my head. I'm pleased about this too. The unexpected bit is that this world has vampires in it.
Thirdly, despite being busy with work, I have completed the first draft of 5 stories, a couple of which I regard as essentially finished, subject to the evolution of the world in which they're set. Of the other three: I'm happy with one and, even though it needs revision for some rough patches in the last third of it, I regard it as a key story in developing a style; a second needs to be tightened up a lot in its second half but the story is sound; and the third is good so far as it goes but is the last in the planned series of stories and therefore subject to change as the other stories develop.
All of this has happened because of the encouragement and feedback of my first readers, the wonderful Rosie and Rach.
By this time next year I'd like to be able to report on further growth and development. I'd like to try and draft around a story a month if I can. If I manage this to any sort of quality, then it will turn out to be around (revised) 100,000 words in the year. That sounds like a New Year's Resolution.
Wednesday, 31 December 2014
Sunday, 9 November 2014
Vamp out West
I finally managed to type "THE END" under the first draft of the current vamp story. The writing of it has been interrupted by work and other things getting in the way, together with a serious re-write of the first half. Still, I'm glad it has got this far.
It is still very obviously first draft. The material I wrote this evening gets the story to the end but needs to be reworked into something readable, with subtle menace and overt weirdness. I'll give it a couple of days then come back to it with a fresh eye. What I expect to happen is that it will be shorn of redundant clauses, phrases and sentences and generally tidied up. Some sections will be expanded with detail and the tone of the whole piece will be harmonised. Finally, now that I know where the story is going, I can make the whole thing look like it is what I always intended to do.
At that point, my patient first readers can cast an eye over it.
It is still very obviously first draft. The material I wrote this evening gets the story to the end but needs to be reworked into something readable, with subtle menace and overt weirdness. I'll give it a couple of days then come back to it with a fresh eye. What I expect to happen is that it will be shorn of redundant clauses, phrases and sentences and generally tidied up. Some sections will be expanded with detail and the tone of the whole piece will be harmonised. Finally, now that I know where the story is going, I can make the whole thing look like it is what I always intended to do.
At that point, my patient first readers can cast an eye over it.
Monday, 27 October 2014
Reading out loud
I once read something by Charlie Stross which made sense to me at the time, and in many respects still does. It was on the subject of reading one's writing out loud and the dangers of correcting the text as a consequence. I am paraphrasing due to dodgy memory, but his reason was that the cadences of written and oral speech are different and one should be careful not to confuse the two.
As I say, I take the point. And yet I do it and find it helpful. I do it for three reasons.
The first is that it helps me decide if a character's voice is sufficiently distinctive to enhance their individuality.
The second is that reading the draft identifies without mercy where the prose is flabby. My hypothesis is that if the writing is lumpy or tiresome or hard to read when spoken out loud, it will be similarly difficult when read in the reader's inner voice.
The third is that it is a useful way of checking my punctuation.
As I say, I take the point. And yet I do it and find it helpful. I do it for three reasons.
The first is that it helps me decide if a character's voice is sufficiently distinctive to enhance their individuality.
The second is that reading the draft identifies without mercy where the prose is flabby. My hypothesis is that if the writing is lumpy or tiresome or hard to read when spoken out loud, it will be similarly difficult when read in the reader's inner voice.
The third is that it is a useful way of checking my punctuation.
Saturday, 25 October 2014
Catch up
Where has October gone?
I spent the first week, or thereabouts, in Canada on a short holiday and since then have been busy with real-world things. However, I finished that post-referendum story and am about halfway through a new vamp story, though not the Chinese one which will come later.
The post-referendum story was essentially flash-fiction and I bookended it by re-written things I first wrote in 2000-2001. Revisiting them was interesting and I re-wrote them by halving the word-count and generally tightening them up. It is around 3500 words. In my head it is a 75,000 word novel but 71,500 of those words are implied.
The new vamp story is mostly set in the USA in the early 1920s. I had to put it aside to get on with some work but the second half exists in my head so at some point I'll dump it all onto the page before revising it. I quite like it so far. I'll be in the USA in early November so I may get the chance to get it finalised in the jet-lagged hours in my hotel.
I spent the first week, or thereabouts, in Canada on a short holiday and since then have been busy with real-world things. However, I finished that post-referendum story and am about halfway through a new vamp story, though not the Chinese one which will come later.
The post-referendum story was essentially flash-fiction and I bookended it by re-written things I first wrote in 2000-2001. Revisiting them was interesting and I re-wrote them by halving the word-count and generally tightening them up. It is around 3500 words. In my head it is a 75,000 word novel but 71,500 of those words are implied.
The new vamp story is mostly set in the USA in the early 1920s. I had to put it aside to get on with some work but the second half exists in my head so at some point I'll dump it all onto the page before revising it. I quite like it so far. I'll be in the USA in early November so I may get the chance to get it finalised in the jet-lagged hours in my hotel.
Monday, 22 September 2014
Just Another Manic Monday
Monday morning and I have the day job to get back to. A couple of things happened over the weekend, though.
The first is that my 'first readers' both came back positive regarding Still Life. This surprised and gratified me in equal measure.
The second is that I came up with two story ideas which have potential to get to a draft stage quite quickly. The first is another vamp story set in 16/17 century China; the second comes from reading some of the post-referendum chatter here in Scotland. I've already started sketching in the latter, though it may put the 'short' in short story. I have my core metaphor, three distinct characters, the setting and the action clear in my head, and they all came surprisingly quickly. All that is required (!) is actually to write it.
Watch this space.
The first is that my 'first readers' both came back positive regarding Still Life. This surprised and gratified me in equal measure.
The second is that I came up with two story ideas which have potential to get to a draft stage quite quickly. The first is another vamp story set in 16/17 century China; the second comes from reading some of the post-referendum chatter here in Scotland. I've already started sketching in the latter, though it may put the 'short' in short story. I have my core metaphor, three distinct characters, the setting and the action clear in my head, and they all came surprisingly quickly. All that is required (!) is actually to write it.
Watch this space.
Wednesday, 17 September 2014
Vamping up is hard to do
The most recent story has reached something like a first draft stage, at last. I am not sure what to make of it - I've wrestled with it so much that I don't have any objectivity about it, so it has gone to a couple of first readers for initial comments before I take it further.
The breakthrough in writing it came when I realised what it was actually about, which allowed me to scrape of the surface layer and tinker with the canvas and the undercoat. It was also heavily influenced by an interview I heard with M John Harrison. This probably made the writing a lot harder to do but also made it a lot more satisfying once I typed "END." I'll link to the interview once I find it again. Much as I like The Executry of Edward Moorehouse--my story written after the holiday in Sutherland--it is a very straightforward, linear narrative, whereas the latest, Still Life, is not. I think that's progress.
The other thing I did was to be ruthless in excising anything that didn't need to be there. Whether I went too far (or perhaps didn't go far enough) is something I'll need to come back to. And right at the end I remembered something Hilary Mantel said about deleting your first paragraph. In this case, once I worked out what the first paragraph was (I restructured the scenes quite a bit as I went along), excising it worked beautifully to throw the reader in media res, I hope.
I'll see what comes back by way of comment. In the meantime there is work and the Independence referendum to distract me before I start to work up the next story. I should add that the two I have written so far in this sequence are essentially the first and the last, so I now have to fill in the middle. This means that the story I have just "finished" will undoubtedly change again to harmonise with whatever I write next.
The breakthrough in writing it came when I realised what it was actually about, which allowed me to scrape of the surface layer and tinker with the canvas and the undercoat. It was also heavily influenced by an interview I heard with M John Harrison. This probably made the writing a lot harder to do but also made it a lot more satisfying once I typed "END." I'll link to the interview once I find it again. Much as I like The Executry of Edward Moorehouse--my story written after the holiday in Sutherland--it is a very straightforward, linear narrative, whereas the latest, Still Life, is not. I think that's progress.
The other thing I did was to be ruthless in excising anything that didn't need to be there. Whether I went too far (or perhaps didn't go far enough) is something I'll need to come back to. And right at the end I remembered something Hilary Mantel said about deleting your first paragraph. In this case, once I worked out what the first paragraph was (I restructured the scenes quite a bit as I went along), excising it worked beautifully to throw the reader in media res, I hope.
I'll see what comes back by way of comment. In the meantime there is work and the Independence referendum to distract me before I start to work up the next story. I should add that the two I have written so far in this sequence are essentially the first and the last, so I now have to fill in the middle. This means that the story I have just "finished" will undoubtedly change again to harmonise with whatever I write next.
Saturday, 6 September 2014
Getting there
This latest story continues to be a grind. I think it may be getting there, after a change of title, complete restructure and a shifting of the narrative from past tense to present. I cut the original text back to under 2000 words in the end, then brought it back up to 4000 or so, then took out more.
The second cutting of the text was different, though - I ruthlessly cut out every extraneous sentence and clause to distill the thing down to raw spirit. It currently sits around 3300 words. In many cases this involved replacing a paragraph with a single sentence. There is a lot more to do to get it to a complete first draft, though.
The part of my mind that is disinterested and analytic is observing how the initial idea that spurred the story has become background rather than the main action. A lot of the stuff that I have cut was exposition, and what I'm trying to do is leave that to hint and inference and write something else.
The second cutting of the text was different, though - I ruthlessly cut out every extraneous sentence and clause to distill the thing down to raw spirit. It currently sits around 3300 words. In many cases this involved replacing a paragraph with a single sentence. There is a lot more to do to get it to a complete first draft, though.
The part of my mind that is disinterested and analytic is observing how the initial idea that spurred the story has become background rather than the main action. A lot of the stuff that I have cut was exposition, and what I'm trying to do is leave that to hint and inference and write something else.
Wednesday, 27 August 2014
Bump and Grind
So, then: this latest story.
I was going great guns and was up to 4400 words. Then I took a look at what I'd written and realised 2000 of those words had to go. This was nothing to do with killing darlings, just the realisation that the first 2500 words worked and the rest didn't - the central scene was terminally dull and had to go, either to be rewritten or replaced.
I'm currently trying to work out how to proceed. The ideas are there in my head but not quite coalescing into a direction that clicks with me. Nil Desperandum.
I was going great guns and was up to 4400 words. Then I took a look at what I'd written and realised 2000 of those words had to go. This was nothing to do with killing darlings, just the realisation that the first 2500 words worked and the rest didn't - the central scene was terminally dull and had to go, either to be rewritten or replaced.
I'm currently trying to work out how to proceed. The ideas are there in my head but not quite coalescing into a direction that clicks with me. Nil Desperandum.
Sunday, 3 August 2014
Vamp right on to the end of the road
I was skimming through New Scientist this morning and came up with what I think is a really neat premise for a vamp story. I jotted it down and have some further reading to do to build it out. The minute it came to me I clenched a mental fist and thought "yes!" albeit in a non-demonstrative British sort of way.
What worries me about it is that I'm not convinced I have the skill to execute it properly. In one sense I'm not sure if that matters insofar as I write for my own amusement, but, the thing is, I'd still like to do the premise justice.
More as we get it.
What worries me about it is that I'm not convinced I have the skill to execute it properly. In one sense I'm not sure if that matters insofar as I write for my own amusement, but, the thing is, I'd still like to do the premise justice.
More as we get it.
Saturday, 26 July 2014
That's Why the Lady is a Vamp
So the first of the 'vampire' stories is sitting at v1.25 - revised from the initial rough manuscript, but still in process. I'll give it a day or so and then when it is in v1.5 I'll put it out to trusted friends for initial comments although I have a feeling they will be surprised by it.
I mentioned previously that I had tapped into something, and some of that comes from my experience as a decision maker in the child-care system some years ago. We saw some bleak situations and the memory of them still sits in my memory and three of them have found their way into this story, albeit in stylised form.
Still, subject to revisions, I'm quite pleased with what I've done here and want to try and stay in this zone as I build the world with other stories. We shall see.
I mentioned previously that I had tapped into something, and some of that comes from my experience as a decision maker in the child-care system some years ago. We saw some bleak situations and the memory of them still sits in my memory and three of them have found their way into this story, albeit in stylised form.
Still, subject to revisions, I'm quite pleased with what I've done here and want to try and stay in this zone as I build the world with other stories. We shall see.
Thursday, 24 July 2014
Fangs Can Only Get Better
So, I mentioned that I appear to have started a vampire story. This has surprised me on several fronts. The first is that I am writing such a thing at all, it is not what I expected to be doing. The second is that the current story itself is coming out quite easily - now I have the basic plot and key elements planned I am managing a thousand words a day once I've finished work.
The third surprise for me is how dark this story is. I've tapped into something which I didn't know was inside me but now I've got there I know there is more to come. The first inklings of this were the ghost story I thought up in Sutherland. That ended up as something else altogether, more of a horror story with a dark erotic twist. This vampire story doesn't have the erotic element but it is somewhat bleak.
But the biggest surprise for me is how much I am enjoying tapping into this dark aquifer and telling these tales. I am starting to think in one of the recesses of my mind about how I can leaven the bleakness with some light and shade. I currently have basic ideas for six stories (probably in the 6500-7000 word arena) and reckon I should easily come up with another four decent ideas as I write. If I manage this over the coming months then I end up with something respectably book length.
Which would be nice.
The third surprise for me is how dark this story is. I've tapped into something which I didn't know was inside me but now I've got there I know there is more to come. The first inklings of this were the ghost story I thought up in Sutherland. That ended up as something else altogether, more of a horror story with a dark erotic twist. This vampire story doesn't have the erotic element but it is somewhat bleak.
But the biggest surprise for me is how much I am enjoying tapping into this dark aquifer and telling these tales. I am starting to think in one of the recesses of my mind about how I can leaven the bleakness with some light and shade. I currently have basic ideas for six stories (probably in the 6500-7000 word arena) and reckon I should easily come up with another four decent ideas as I write. If I manage this over the coming months then I end up with something respectably book length.
Which would be nice.
Monday, 21 July 2014
Recent reading
I've read three newly published books over the last couple of weeks. They were:
- Half A King, Joe Abercrombie.
- The Rhesus Chart, Charles Stross.
- The Book of Life, Deborah Harkness
I enjoyed all three of them, though not uncritically.
Of the three, Joe Abercrombie is the best writer and Half A King probably the best written. Unlike his previous novels, however, this is a Young Adult novel and isn't as rich a reading experience as, for example, The Heroes, which is a tour-de-force in its own terms and also technically, with its shifting POVs during the battle sequences. It will be interesting to see what consequences the economy of the prose Abercrombie deploys in Half A King has on his writing once he returns to the world of the adult novel. This one has a nice -and very dark- ending, though.
Charlie Stross is usually entertaining and the Laundry series particularly so. I was worried beforehand because his last published novel, Neptune's Brood, was the first book by him that I have put down unfinished. I know from his blog and Twitter feed that he is prolific and bursting with ideas. My worry has been that in his productivity he is losing some quality control. Although I enjoyed The Rhesus Chart, that worry has not entirely left me and I sometimes thought that it could have done with a further revision to focus it a little more. A decent read but beginners to the Laundry should start with The Atrocity Archives and work forwards.
Deborah Harkness is a relative newcomer to writing fiction, but had the fortune to make her debut with an international best-seller, A Discovery of Witches. In a formal sense I think she is probably the weakest of the three as a writer insofar she is still learning her craft. She could learn a lot about the economy of effective prose from Abercrombie. And yet, of the three, The Book of Life was the book which I most enjoyed reading: a page-turner that kept me engaged to the end. It is also the one that I am most likely to read again.
Of the three, Joe Abercrombie is the best writer and Half A King probably the best written. Unlike his previous novels, however, this is a Young Adult novel and isn't as rich a reading experience as, for example, The Heroes, which is a tour-de-force in its own terms and also technically, with its shifting POVs during the battle sequences. It will be interesting to see what consequences the economy of the prose Abercrombie deploys in Half A King has on his writing once he returns to the world of the adult novel. This one has a nice -and very dark- ending, though.
Charlie Stross is usually entertaining and the Laundry series particularly so. I was worried beforehand because his last published novel, Neptune's Brood, was the first book by him that I have put down unfinished. I know from his blog and Twitter feed that he is prolific and bursting with ideas. My worry has been that in his productivity he is losing some quality control. Although I enjoyed The Rhesus Chart, that worry has not entirely left me and I sometimes thought that it could have done with a further revision to focus it a little more. A decent read but beginners to the Laundry should start with The Atrocity Archives and work forwards.
Deborah Harkness is a relative newcomer to writing fiction, but had the fortune to make her debut with an international best-seller, A Discovery of Witches. In a formal sense I think she is probably the weakest of the three as a writer insofar she is still learning her craft. She could learn a lot about the economy of effective prose from Abercrombie. And yet, of the three, The Book of Life was the book which I most enjoyed reading: a page-turner that kept me engaged to the end. It is also the one that I am most likely to read again.
Saturday, 19 July 2014
Fangs for the Memory
I was jotting down ideas, letting myself free-associate around a theme. I wrote them down during a train journey to London. On the return trip I opened up the laptop and tried just writing to see what came out.
I appear to have started a vampire story.
Good grief.
I appear to have started a vampire story.
Good grief.
Sunday, 13 July 2014
Sex and Death
I'm feeling quite pleased with myself.
While on holiday up in Sutherland I had a moment on a remote beach where I suddenly thought of MR James and his classic ghost stories, particularly "Oh Whistle and I'll Come To You My Lad". By the time we got back to the cottage I had the rough outline of a ghost/horror story and I finished it last week, at least in first draft. I'll let it ferment for a wee while before polishing it.
I'm not pleased out of any pretensions about its quality or because it comes anywhere close to the standards set by MRJ, but because I wrote it, start to finish, and it does pretty much what I want it to do.
What I'm not sure of is what to do with it once I finally call it completed.
While on holiday up in Sutherland I had a moment on a remote beach where I suddenly thought of MR James and his classic ghost stories, particularly "Oh Whistle and I'll Come To You My Lad". By the time we got back to the cottage I had the rough outline of a ghost/horror story and I finished it last week, at least in first draft. I'll let it ferment for a wee while before polishing it.
I'm not pleased out of any pretensions about its quality or because it comes anywhere close to the standards set by MRJ, but because I wrote it, start to finish, and it does pretty much what I want it to do.
What I'm not sure of is what to do with it once I finally call it completed.
Sunday, 1 June 2014
Slow progress
Despite my silence I have not been idle. I am still working on the same story but have, in the interim, heavily restructured the beginning and written some bits of the middle and end to give me a clearer picture of what I'm aiming for. The result is that I'm much more comfortable with what I'm writing and hopeful of making progress. I don't feel quite so much that I'm making it up as I go along anymore even though I am, of course, making it up as I go along.
I mentioned in my last post that I had cut 4000 words from an earlier draft - I probably cut another 1000 or so after that. I'm kind of caught up with where I was previously, word-count wise, but I think they're better words.
In particular I am more aware of the types of weirdness I want to put into the story, albeit that I fully expect a second draft to introduce some substantial revisions. This dismays me not one jot: I've said since the beginning that this story is being written as part of an extended learning exercise and, from that perspective, false starts, deletions and revisions are very positive.
I mentioned in my last post that I had cut 4000 words from an earlier draft - I probably cut another 1000 or so after that. I'm kind of caught up with where I was previously, word-count wise, but I think they're better words.
In particular I am more aware of the types of weirdness I want to put into the story, albeit that I fully expect a second draft to introduce some substantial revisions. This dismays me not one jot: I've said since the beginning that this story is being written as part of an extended learning exercise and, from that perspective, false starts, deletions and revisions are very positive.
Sunday, 20 April 2014
Spring cull
I haven't posted for a while, but then it has been quiet on the writing front. Partly this is because work got busy but, I concede, sloth had a part to play also.
The consequence was that when I did look again at what I had written I had enough distance to recognise some blind alleys and a need to change. Also, I read a couple of novels that set me thinking. The first was Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge which I thoroughly enjoyed and which reminded me of the art of narrative weirdness even though it is a fairly straightforward novel. The second was Ken MacLeod's Descent which I also enjoyed but which had plot elements that were too close to some of those I had in mind.
So I have been engaged in a fairly radical revision of what I had already written, losing 4000 words and a pov character in the process but gaining some narrative clarity and blocking off the loose ends.
All being well this will let the creative juices flow some more over the coming weeks.
The consequence was that when I did look again at what I had written I had enough distance to recognise some blind alleys and a need to change. Also, I read a couple of novels that set me thinking. The first was Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge which I thoroughly enjoyed and which reminded me of the art of narrative weirdness even though it is a fairly straightforward novel. The second was Ken MacLeod's Descent which I also enjoyed but which had plot elements that were too close to some of those I had in mind.
So I have been engaged in a fairly radical revision of what I had already written, losing 4000 words and a pov character in the process but gaining some narrative clarity and blocking off the loose ends.
All being well this will let the creative juices flow some more over the coming weeks.
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
Bring me the head of minor character number two.
I have said before that what I am working on is definitely first draft because it is only by the end of the first draft that I will know how it ends and, therefore, only then will I know what the early chapters should be re-written to accommodate. A case in point: I created a character a couple of days ago who was originally conceived purely as minor character (number one) who is, or was, a plot device to introduce my journalist to another minor character (number two). Minor character number two's role in life is to deliver some exposition and then die a horrible and meaningless death, thereby setting in train the build up to crisis number one in the story.
However minor character number one has taken on something of a life of her own and I've just realised that I need a more complicated backstory for my journalist than originally planned. I think this is probably a good thing.
However minor character number one has taken on something of a life of her own and I've just realised that I need a more complicated backstory for my journalist than originally planned. I think this is probably a good thing.
Monday, 17 February 2014
Green and Red
I write them longhand in a notebook with a fountain pen and then come back later and type them up. The pic. above/to the right is of the first exercise I tried, Blue, as it came out of my pen. Generally I make no change unless there is something so obvious (like a missing verb) that a tweak is necessary. Otherwise what is written here is exactly what comes out of my head.
Anyway, for what they are worth, and at the request of my small band of readers, here are the two exercises.
GREEN
Green, a colour associated with life, with eyes, with jealousy and envy, and by extension with witchcraft. Where to begin? Perhaps with the Irish Pink Floyd covers band whose "Shine on You Crazy Emerald" never caught on?
Green: verdancy, spring and lushness. The turning of the year's cycle towards rebirth and new life. It is one of the pleasures of the year when I look out of my kitchen window and see green buds appear on my apple trees. This is partly because I know the blossom will soon exhibit itself and partly because of the pleasures of autumn that they presage. Cooking apples for pies and crumbles and the fabby eaters - Katy and Cox's Orange Red - which explode with flavour in September and October respectively.
Of course green, too, is the moss which now dominates what was once a back lawn and is seemingly uncontrollable.
I wonder why 'green eyes' have become associated with envy (as too 'green with envy'); if anything it should be reversed, green eyes having their own character quite distinct from the unpigmented blue or James Bond's cold grey. The association with witchcraft too: green eyes, red hair and a real or vestigial sixth finger being the reputed indicators. Except for the sixth finger this looks like fear of the Celtic to me. My memory stirs to tell me that one of Henry VIII's wives was reputedly so endowed - Anne Boleyn perhaps?
Oddly, these characteristics were not so determinative as to stop puritans and others condemning so many women with other eye colours to a nasty end, celebrated now in some places by the treatment of their deaths as the basis for a tourist economy: Salem and Pendle I am looking at you.
Which brings me to another green - sickness, real or metaphorical. This I can understand insofar as I once flew back from Shetland to Edinburgh in a small plane in a storm while in the grips of a relentless hangover. At least wo people afterwards commented that I looked a very odd shade of green for most of that flight, and I believe them unhesitatingly.
RED
Red: the colour of Mars, the warbringer. The colour of rubies and PJ Harvey's ruby red lips. Red, the colour of blood, of danger, of an instruction to stop. Red is the colour of one's hands when caught in the act, a usage which is, I think, of Saxon vintage.
And yet also the colour of roses, carnations and poppies, freckles of beauty in fields of green and gold, even as they become metaphors for death and violence. The red poppies, row on row, in Flanders' fields.
This makes red interesting as a bipolar symbol, a symbol of both beauty ('my love is like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in June') and violence. This bipolarity has been expertly exploited in popular culture - nowhere more so than in vampire stories and legends. This has been so since the technicolour sanguinity of Ingrid Pitt in Hammer movies to the more baroque creations of Anne Rice and her Byronic undead protagonists - at least one of whom, per my previous exercise, had red hair, green eyes and an extra finger.
Red hair - a sure sign of a fiery temper and a passionate nature, something my memories of adolescence tacitly, if anecdotally, confirms! Given the geographical/genetic propensity of the red-headed to be in predominantly 'celtic' areas, one wonders what lies behind the tales associated with the red-haired.
And some of my favourite actresses are red-haired: Pat Tallman of Babylon 5, Karen Gillan of Dr. Who and, fieriest of the lot, Maureen O'Hara, magnificent with Victor McClaggan and John Wayne in 'The Quiet Man'. A corny old tale to be sure but a great one. Was Maureen worth the efforts of the fight scene that seemed to fill most of the second half of the film? You bet.
Maureen O'Hara as the incarnation of Mars, bringer of war, but also of fiery passion and the impulse that drives us tpwards the Dionysian. The impulse which means it is often better to seek forgiveness than to seek permission. The impulse that says 'No regrets, Coyote'.
Saturday, 8 February 2014
Spirit of Randomness
A slightly different exercise this time (I'll get back to colours shortly). I remember someone advising that each morning one should sit down and just right whatever comes into your mind for twenty minutes or so. The aim is to open up the head a little and let the thoughts flow. This is today's result, unedited for style, grammar or anything else.
I'm surprised I got as far as I did - I've been playing peek-a-boo with an incipient migraine for a few days and can still feel it lurking. I was so sure it wouldn't happen today that I jotted this down on scrap paper rather than in my usual notebook.
Anyway, random thoughts from a slightly unsettled mind.
=====
Random, randomness as both chaos and design. Just because you see a pattern doesn't mean that there is one, and just because you can't see it that doesn't mean that it iosn't there - think of all those IQ test questions that baffled you.
What are the implications? Some are obvious, like seeing canals on Mars or conspiracy theories.
How does this work out in fiction? Partly I think it is in crafting a story and letting the imagination of the reader free associate. Partly it could be seeding a story with false trails to disguise the absence of true trails or to make the true trail obscure. That takes skill and hence my quest to write a million words of bullshit before I produce anything worthwhile.
I'm listening to Daevid Allen with the scents of old joss-sticks in the air. The cd is Sacred Geometries IV - patterns which may or may not have meaning. Well, clearly they do have meaning for many; does this make them 'real'? Or, maybe better, in what sense are they real? This brings a flashback of Bertrand Russell talking about whether and in what sense chairs are real. And it starts to raise the questions that arise from my naive attempts to consider Quantum descriptions of the natural world.
The chair on which I sit is real, I might say, but those words in themselves are full of assumptions - about 'I', for example.
Following this line of thought, I was going to say that the physical reality of my body is how my consciousness experiences it. On the other hand I believe that my consciousness is a function of my physical body; that without my body there is no 'I'. I don't think that these are irreconcilable, there is a glimmer of something in my mind but I need to articulate it. I'm not sure as I can in a stream of consciousness piece like this one. It doesn't afford the time to reflect and to see what those glimmerings can illuminate.
I think it is something to do with habitual frames of reference perhaps. The sense of self and the sense of physicality are deeply intertwined. Just because I don't think that self can be separated from the physical does not mean that our way of understanding our physical nature is the only one possible. Just because we see a pattern does not mean it is there: just because it looks random does not mean that there is no underlying order. These are not formally paradoxical statements.
I'm not sure where, if anywhere, this takes me, but then again there was never any guarantee it would take me anywhere. Although I do think it puts me into the penumbra of things which I have thought about, off and on, for as long as I can remember.
I'm surprised I got as far as I did - I've been playing peek-a-boo with an incipient migraine for a few days and can still feel it lurking. I was so sure it wouldn't happen today that I jotted this down on scrap paper rather than in my usual notebook.
Anyway, random thoughts from a slightly unsettled mind.
=====
Random, randomness as both chaos and design. Just because you see a pattern doesn't mean that there is one, and just because you can't see it that doesn't mean that it iosn't there - think of all those IQ test questions that baffled you.
What are the implications? Some are obvious, like seeing canals on Mars or conspiracy theories.
How does this work out in fiction? Partly I think it is in crafting a story and letting the imagination of the reader free associate. Partly it could be seeding a story with false trails to disguise the absence of true trails or to make the true trail obscure. That takes skill and hence my quest to write a million words of bullshit before I produce anything worthwhile.
I'm listening to Daevid Allen with the scents of old joss-sticks in the air. The cd is Sacred Geometries IV - patterns which may or may not have meaning. Well, clearly they do have meaning for many; does this make them 'real'? Or, maybe better, in what sense are they real? This brings a flashback of Bertrand Russell talking about whether and in what sense chairs are real. And it starts to raise the questions that arise from my naive attempts to consider Quantum descriptions of the natural world.
The chair on which I sit is real, I might say, but those words in themselves are full of assumptions - about 'I', for example.
Following this line of thought, I was going to say that the physical reality of my body is how my consciousness experiences it. On the other hand I believe that my consciousness is a function of my physical body; that without my body there is no 'I'. I don't think that these are irreconcilable, there is a glimmer of something in my mind but I need to articulate it. I'm not sure as I can in a stream of consciousness piece like this one. It doesn't afford the time to reflect and to see what those glimmerings can illuminate.
I think it is something to do with habitual frames of reference perhaps. The sense of self and the sense of physicality are deeply intertwined. Just because I don't think that self can be separated from the physical does not mean that our way of understanding our physical nature is the only one possible. Just because we see a pattern does not mean it is there: just because it looks random does not mean that there is no underlying order. These are not formally paradoxical statements.
I'm not sure where, if anywhere, this takes me, but then again there was never any guarantee it would take me anywhere. Although I do think it puts me into the penumbra of things which I have thought about, off and on, for as long as I can remember.
Thursday, 6 February 2014
Yellow
Is there a one eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu? I dare say there might be, somewhere. If there is, it seems like an eminently sensible place to be. People would no doubt look askance, or at least with surprise, if the was a one eyed yellow idol to the north of Finchley High Street.
Maybe that could be the new standard of public opinion: the one eyed yellow idol on the top deck of the Clapham Omnibus. Unless it is the Daily Express or the Daily Mail, of course, they are more representative of the views of Mad Carew.
I wonder if Mad Carew was yellow? Perhaps that would explain why he was mad, in either sense of the word. If I woke up to find myself yellow I would be pretty annoyed too, and it could, indeed, eventually give rise to a certain hysteria.
Goodness knows why one might wake up yellow: jaundice, I suppose, or perhaps a sherbet fountain of sulphur erupting during the night. The latter would, of course, require me actually to have sherbet fountains of sulphur adjacent to my bed, which I don't. Hence, of course, the surprise.
Of course it -the idol- might be yellow in the sense of being cowardly. The lion in the Wizard of Oz was cowardly but it was not yellow, more of a sofa-fabric brown. It was, however, on the yellow brick road which is enough of an association for me. Also, more than enough for the Daily Express and the Daily Mail - the yellow press, ironically enough.
It does occur to me, as I write, that yellow is a strange word. Of course all words are strange if you repeat them aloud out of context. But why those two syllables: yell - ow? Until a moment ago it had never occurred to me to consider the etymology: it probably won't occur to me again! I'm frightened of what I might uncover if I research it - yellow, in fact.
Perhaps that's why the one eyed yellow idol is up there to the north of Khatmandu: it got so deep into the etymology of its colouration that it had no recourse but to flee into the wilderness to contemplate its own bi-syllabic skin. Maybe it will one day go mad, like Carew, who may, or may not, be yellow.
Wednesday, 5 February 2014
Still Got the Blues
I downloaded a book by Sara Maitland (The Writer's Way) which I'm enjoying. It has a series of basic writing exercises in it and I had my first crack at one last night. The exercise is straightforward: pick a colour and write about it for fifteen minutes. Don't stop, don't revise, just write. Then repeat with a different colour.
So I got a fountain pen and paper and wrote, and was interested in what my subconscious came up with. I've typed it up below but have made one tiny edit - one of the sentences had no verb and needed one. Other than that, this is what tumbled out of my pen.
===
Blue is the colour of my true love's face in the morning as I rise. Is it blue with cold I wonder? Did she attempt to apply eye-shadow while asleep - somnabulent cosmeticism? Or perhaps it is blue because she has suffocated, whether from apnoea or perhaps a cat using her for a cushion while I slept on.
Perhaps there was a blue moon overnight and the rays somehow gave rise to an immediate genetic mutation, rendering her forever azure, like the Mediterranean viewed from Sorrento or a Microsoft Cloud solution.
Or perhaps I killed her in a blue funk, a fit of the blues, a melancholic state that drove me to take her life in an unthinking few moments of rage.
Furious people usually 'see red' - perhaps I saw blue. I'm certainly seeing blue now.
Blue, blue, blues; the Devil at the crossroads with a blue cat bone, with Robert Johnson, selling his soul for fame and an early death.
Blues, a music of sorrow or ecstasy, rooted in the forced exodus of Africans to a new land; the property of Bible-reading Scots protestants.
From the blue skies of Africa to the blue lagoons of the West Indies to the blue cotton overalls of the cotton picker. And, often, to the blue face of the dead slave; dead from overwork or starvation or disease or casual homicide.
Or blue fruit, strange fruit, hanging from southern trees while blue-eyed belles stand in blue cotton summer dresses and blue ribbons in their blond, blond tresses. Blue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining. Shine down on the ants, scrabbling in your soils, making their love, making their music, making their graves in your disinterested light.
And what of Josie and Billy-Bob on the bench seat of their dirty blue Packard, his hands a-roving in her disheveled blue underwear? Each desperate with desire for the other, each repressed by their shame, by their fear of pregnancy. Until in an exultant lapse of judgement they go for it hammer and tongs, lost in lust. But they sure had the blues nine months later, when their bouncing, blue-eyed baby boy was born, to be taken away by blue-habited nuns under the rich blue skies of summer.
So I got a fountain pen and paper and wrote, and was interested in what my subconscious came up with. I've typed it up below but have made one tiny edit - one of the sentences had no verb and needed one. Other than that, this is what tumbled out of my pen.
===
BLUE
Blue is the colour of my true love's face in the morning as I rise. Is it blue with cold I wonder? Did she attempt to apply eye-shadow while asleep - somnabulent cosmeticism? Or perhaps it is blue because she has suffocated, whether from apnoea or perhaps a cat using her for a cushion while I slept on.
Perhaps there was a blue moon overnight and the rays somehow gave rise to an immediate genetic mutation, rendering her forever azure, like the Mediterranean viewed from Sorrento or a Microsoft Cloud solution.
Or perhaps I killed her in a blue funk, a fit of the blues, a melancholic state that drove me to take her life in an unthinking few moments of rage.
Furious people usually 'see red' - perhaps I saw blue. I'm certainly seeing blue now.
Blue, blue, blues; the Devil at the crossroads with a blue cat bone, with Robert Johnson, selling his soul for fame and an early death.
Blues, a music of sorrow or ecstasy, rooted in the forced exodus of Africans to a new land; the property of Bible-reading Scots protestants.
From the blue skies of Africa to the blue lagoons of the West Indies to the blue cotton overalls of the cotton picker. And, often, to the blue face of the dead slave; dead from overwork or starvation or disease or casual homicide.
Or blue fruit, strange fruit, hanging from southern trees while blue-eyed belles stand in blue cotton summer dresses and blue ribbons in their blond, blond tresses. Blue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining. Shine down on the ants, scrabbling in your soils, making their love, making their music, making their graves in your disinterested light.
And what of Josie and Billy-Bob on the bench seat of their dirty blue Packard, his hands a-roving in her disheveled blue underwear? Each desperate with desire for the other, each repressed by their shame, by their fear of pregnancy. Until in an exultant lapse of judgement they go for it hammer and tongs, lost in lust. But they sure had the blues nine months later, when their bouncing, blue-eyed baby boy was born, to be taken away by blue-habited nuns under the rich blue skies of summer.
Monday, 3 February 2014
Back to the fray?
So, I have been wholly distracted from writing fiction by writing stuff for business and various other diversions. I keep reading all sorts of advice about discipline and putting aside time to write but, however much I nod sagely, discipline comes there none.
However I have been keen to get back into the habit. I printed off all that I have written so far and read it through to get back into the rhythms of the narrative. I also had a pen to hand and revised the odd sentence or three. My verdict is that it is a bit dull but that I should press on and finish the first draft of the story before addressing other issues in a substantially revised second draft.
All being well the next chapter starts tonight.
However I have been keen to get back into the habit. I printed off all that I have written so far and read it through to get back into the rhythms of the narrative. I also had a pen to hand and revised the odd sentence or three. My verdict is that it is a bit dull but that I should press on and finish the first draft of the story before addressing other issues in a substantially revised second draft.
All being well the next chapter starts tonight.
Sunday, 5 January 2014
Me Again
Little to report since my last update - December was full of unexpected distractions and topped off with a couple of bugs that wiped out any creative urges I might have had. Still, chapter 2 is finished - at least until I come back for a second draft re-write - and I'm pleased with it so far as it goes.
I do need to refocus my energies though
I do need to refocus my energies though
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