West Pier Words

A Small Big Ben Boast

2009-07-11T06:31:00.006+01:00

My direct ancestor - great, great, great grandfather, or something - was Benjamin Hall after whom Big Ben is named. Today is its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. Hurrah!

(He would have despaired at the thought of the Big Brother camera. And, by the way, the name Big Ben applies to the bell, not the tower.)

Catch-up

2009-07-03T08:59:00.006+01:00

The gaps between my posts are lengthening, my excuse is I am becoming overwhelmed by social networks of one kind or another. For instance, I spent this morning catching up on sixty plus posts on blogs I follow in between reading Tweets and glancing at Facebook.

I am sure it is all very necessary and will stop me from becoming the fossil of a social outcast in the twenty-first century, but it is time consuming.

News

Last Tuesday I went with Rebecca and a couple of friends to the J. W. Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy. Waterhouse is the Pre-Raphaelite who was never one of the Brotherhood. He would not feature on my list of preferred artists of the period - Whistler tops the bill as far as I am concerned - but I am very pleased I went.

(This is entitled, Circe Invidiosa: Circe Poisoning the Sea. I prefer the title, Circe Tests New Fairy Liquid.)

Apart from being an unbelievable draughtsman and colourist, he is interesting in that he stuck, more or less, to his theme throughout his life. At various times he is influenced by contemporary developments and interests, like Japonisme, female sexuality, and Impressionism, but his love for Neoclassicism and Romanticism remains with him up until the end.

If you have a heart of stone, the cure is at the RA.

On Monday, I visited Emily, Amy and Katie-the-trainee-police-siren. I have never heard a one-year old with such a loud voice. They are all coming to Brighton for the weekend, so you have been warned.

Book

I have shortlisted the agents I am interested in and have been working on my query letter and synopsis. Meanwhile I am waiting for feedback on the book.

Exciting News

I blogged some time ago about the topic for my next book. Close your eyes little ones, it will be about sex. On the way to work a week or two ago, I had a J. K. Rowling moment - the whole book came to me in its entirety. I even have a working title: Eyes Across a Canvas.

Not being one to take the easy route, it will require an enormous amount of research; however, the thought of that alone excites me.

I am also working on a children's story in conjunction with a work colleague who is an illustrator. This is more a project for both of us rather than something we envisage being published - though you never know. It will be Katie's story to follow the one I have written for Amy.

The Agent Hunter

2009-06-25T08:23:00.002+01:00

The book is out to be reviewed by an individual who will be my fiercest critic - my daughter. She also happens to represent my target market, i.e. someone who loves reading, particularly literary fiction, which I define as a book that requires the reader to engage intellectually with the content one way or another.

It has already passed one critic, who approved it with minor revisions. Once through my daughter's hands, it will be passed to a friend, who taught English for years, primarily for him to scrutinise my punctuation and grammar.

I have found it difficult to settle on the genre of my book. I have been told magic realism might be it from those who have some inkling of the plot. Reviewer number three will know.

In the meantime, I have started the hunt for an agent. I spent an hour in the library going through the The Writer's Handbook, made a long list and checked them out on the internet.

The latter was an interesting exercise; one agent who I liked the sound of had a site which was up and running except for the list of authors they represented - it was still 'under construction' (it would be one of the first pages I would construct were I they). Another hadn't updated their site since 2007. Another just had a single home page stating they were literary agents. And one I really warmed to has no web presence.

Given the importance of network marketing these days, it is a concern.

When Cyclists Give You the Willies.

2009-06-15T08:41:00.004+01:00

Yesterday, while wrestling with the edit of my last chapter, I was disturbed by the sounds of whistles, merry cheering and the sounds of people having fun. Out on my balcony, I looked down to discover a sea of bottoms.

It was the Brighton Naked Bike Ride, one of a series of similar events that take place in cities around the world in June to alert motorists to the fragility of the human body and the vulnerability of cyclists.

A poignant and timely reminder as a colleague at work was very nearly killed a few weeks ago when he was knocked from his bike by a lorry at a roundabout and the rear wheels ran over him.

He has had several operations on his legs, his left in particular, and the consultant is hopeful that it will be capable of 'load bearing', in other words he will be able to walk but how well remains to be seen.

I used to cycle to work regularly when I worked in London - it is the quickest way to commute - and on most journeys there was a near incident of one kind or another, cars pulling across in front of you to turn left with no warning, people in parked cars throwing open their doors without looking - that kind of thing. It seems unnecessary to say cyclists need to keep their wits about them; however, the number of people I see on bikes wearing headphones is frightening. How can they concentrate on what is going on around them if they are listening to music. Hearing is a key sense when cycling, it acts as a form of rear view mirror in alerting you of any unusual activity behind you.

I hope my colleague makes a full recovery. No one from work has been allowed to see him as yet but it is hoped someone will be able to do so soon.

Don't Write: Read

2009-06-11T14:32:00.006+01:00

My advice to anyone who intends writing a novel is don’t start. For the sake of your family, your friends and your sanity, don’t even think about it. Take up something more life enhancing, like a five-year period of solitary confinement in a dungeon.

I have spent the interval since my last post editing my first draft. My head has been in a very dark place with no light to illuminate the way, and no glimmer that might tell me if I am in tunnel or a cave. So overwhelming has been my obssession, I don’t believe I’ve heard a single word anyone has said to me during the intervening period. I have found it very difficult to switch off. Even as I write this, I am thinking about two small holes that need plugging.

Still, it is finished all bar the last chapter, the most difficult of all, and I am taking the briefest of breaks to come to it refreshed.

Editing has been an interesting exercise, very different from drafting the original MS, more technical, in terms of pace, structure, use of language, et cetera. I wrote the first very sparsely – at times it reads more like a film script than a novel –with few adjectives or adverbs. It was intentional; I concentrated on developing the character of the protagonists purely through their voice. My motto: show, don’t tell.

There is another reason for the leanness of my first draft – it concerns my ambition for the novel. I will not clarify here because, if it ever is published, I want readers to decide without my explanation.

Much of my editing has concentrated on giving the reader a sense of time and place, and to create a soundtrack for the novel through language.

I found this article by Tim Clare, How to get a book deal, via Lynn Price, via Sally Zigmond (welcome back, Sally). Tim’s journey to write his book was more fraught than mine. He ends the body of the article with five points on What not to do; A beginner’s guide, the first of which is; ‘Don't believe you dilute your vision by reading others' work.’

When I was editing, I scanned pages of three authors whose tone of voice was closest to the one I wanted to achieve. These I had to hand, so every time I became stuck on a technical issue, I would look at their work and analyse how they resolved a similar problem. For those who fear reading other people’s writing will prove more contagious than swine flue and infect their own style, think of it in terms of painting.

All artists, or those who paint in oil, study other artists to learn technique, style, structure and so on. They will go so far as to directly copy others’ art to get closer to the experience of the individual they are emulating. When it comes to the creation of their own work, they have a wider range of tools available to realise their personal vision.

The same is true for authors. The more technical facility you have, the better and more individual an author you will be.

Mind Massage Music Please.

2009-05-24T18:50:00.004+01:00

I cannot write in the absence of sound. It would be an impossibility, anyhow, given that I live over a main shopping street. However, that is not the point.

If I do attempt to compose in silence I cannot concentrate. My mind wanders away to chase one butterfly after another until it is over the hill and faraway. It needs a background noise to fight against, and it is only in this contest does it succeed in focusing on the matter in hand.

The sound I choose varies according to my purpose. If I am creating the story, in other words, in the process of developing a passage where there is a need for lateral thought, I like the sound of the human voice, so I will listen to a radio drama. I find the voices in the background promote associated thoughts and ideas for my own work.

If I know precisely what is happening on paper and it is only a question of setting it down, or if I am redrafting my work, as now, voices are too diverting - their words clash with mine - so I listen to music.

The music I find the best aid to concentration in these circumstances was discovered after much experimentation while writing my MA dissertation.

It cannot involve the human voice for aforementioned reasons. Neither, must it be too strident or explosive for similar reasons. Rock music is out.

Step forward Joseph Haydn with his violin and cello concertos. They are gentle, soothing and upbeat, subtle and intelligent. They massage the grey cells.

I would love to find more music with similar qualities. Unfortunately, I am something of a dunce when it comes to music. At the moment, I am listening to Handel's last opera, Admeto, on BBC Radio 3. It's not doing the job. Too much emotion.

Any music buffs out there have any suggestions?

(Image: http://www.cybernation.com/victory/successgalleries/concentration.html)

Saints & Sinners

2009-05-19T07:44:00.004+01:00

I had a long conversation with my ex earlier - dear Sue. We were discussing elder daughter, Rebecca, who has a very exciting project to participate as a film researcher in what sounds to me a complex production where, as Rebecca says, her ideas and her creativity are valued.

Her boss, with whom she has worked for a couple of years now, is a man I would love to meet. He is, according to Rebecca, a workaholic who has always encouraged and helped her. He did his best to help her to take on this temporary job - even to the extent of negotiating a very respectful daily fee for her.

As I said, I have never met him but I would dearly love to.

(Like me, he is a fan of Manchester United, though, unlike me, has the money to follow them wherever they travel in search of silver. But that is by the by. And in case I hear sighs, the reason why I follow the fortunes of Manchester United is because I went to a Jesuit boarding school in Lancashire from the age of seven, and most of the boys were from Manchester, so supported what was, in those days, the predominantly Catholic United team as opposed to the Protestant City team.)

As I said to Sue, the creative world seems divided into the those whose egos are so big they cannot look beyond searching for their own image on any reflective surface. And those who will make every effort to promote and encourage others.

Rebecca, as she recognises, is very fortunate. Also, very excited. Fingers crossed the project works out. It is only for three weeks.

On a different matter, yesterday was a brick wall in terms of editing my book. Not a word written or revised. Today, will be different as I think I have a resolution to the block.

William Caxton, Where Are You Now That I Need You?

2009-05-16T07:51:00.006+01:00

On this gloomy and wet morning when even the gulls look miserable, I am feeling very positive.

I have restructured my MS, printed out the first chapter, gone through it word by word and identified the holes.

It has been an interesting process. First I read the whole in one go to get a feel of how it held together, marking any obvious weakness with a cross. Next I read it page by page with the eye of a critic. I have edited others' work before and found it easier than I thought. I just pretended someone else had written it. I patched and repaired as I went along in longhand.

Today I will be transferring my notes to screen. And that will be Chapter One.

My only gripe is the speed and cost of printing. It took an hour for my appallingly slow printer to spit ink on fifty-four pages. Eventually, I want to make three copies of my finished MS to send to three carefully selected individuals who have kindly agreed to critique it before I give the book its final polish. That means printing one thousand plus pages. Even as I type this, my printer looks faint.

How do others manage to produce hard copies of their work? I am hoping I can do a deal at the place where I work. Tuppence a page if I supply the paper sounds fair. Doesn't it?

Heavy Breathing

2009-05-10T12:41:00.004+01:00

I love words. I am a writer, now an author, so I would do. I love their history, their origins, how their meaning has developed over the centuries, sometimes to come to represent the very opposite of that which was their original intention. Wicked!

Henry Miller, whose works I swallowed in huge indigestible lumps, hungry for their flavour, envious of their energy, prior to my entry to Sussex University, famously used to visit his local library in New York on a daily basis (I forget which, it is probably the equivalent of the British Museum) to look through a dictionary to find a word unknown to him at the time that he would then employ the next time he set pen to paper. He lived on words.

I love Miller; he helped me get my pass into Sussex. His works are full of bombast, lies and, occasionally, truth but, as earlier stated, spark and sizzle with energy. He must have been an exhausting individual to have been associated with, one that sucked all the oxygen from the room.

I met his equivalent when living in Paris. Not his equivalent, but an American disciple. He had been a director of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago, world-renowned, cutting edge and stuff like that, who was doing his Henry Miller thing in Paris.

He directed an am/dram version of Pinter’s The Homecoming. It was staged in a tiny, ancient and venerable lecture room of a Parisian university, I forget which, with a minute balcony. You could well have been back in the days of tricorn hats and Madame Guillotine. The lighting consisted of one naked bulb shaded with a piece of greaseproof paper. The actors were on stage when sitting down, off stage when standing behind their chairs.

I had never seen a staging of or read The Homecoming and, essentially, this was a glorified reading, but I remember to this day the power of that dramatisation.

This quote is lifted from Wikipedia:

Considering the play while surveying Pinter's career on the occasion of its 40-anniversary production at the Cort Theatre, in The New Yorker, the critic John Lahr writes: "'The Homecoming' changed my life. Before the play, I thought words were just vessels of meaning; after it, I saw them as weapons of defense. Before, I thought theatre was about the spoken; after, I understood the eloquence of the unspoken. The position of a chair, the length of a pause, the choice of a gesture, I realized, could convey volumes.” [sic]

I love words. But I am wary of their power. We are strange creatures insofar as we are unique in our ability to employ abstract sounds to convey meaning. I accept every creature uses sound to declare a territory or invitation to breed – a terrorcity, a fuck-off-out-of-here-you-are-on-my-land-unless-you-can-have-babies declaration – yet are we so different? Isn’t that what The Homecoming is about?

Words are circumcised, they land in our ear gentle and pleasing, disguised of the outrage of the act of circumcision. Words are brutal as an act of rape, overreactions to the act of circumcision. And what do I mean by this concept of circumcision other than circumscription. It may strike you merely as a play on words, but one function of words is to play one on the other.

Out of a misguided politesse, we employ words to disguise what we mean though we will, with tone and tenor, do our utmost to insinuate our venom.

[I can hear the tut-tuts of those who believe themselves to be totally altruistic in their every utterance. Or, those who forgive themselves for wilful thoughts because they believe they are absolutely justified. Hey-ho.]

No utterance is innocent. Every one is fully laden with e-numbers. It is for this reason we find the written and spoken word so fascinating. Words betray us. Words allow us to peer through the physical presence to the insecurities of the person we believe we identify with. I can hear tuts. My interpretation of others’ words is moulded by my own psyche. But that is the truth of words. We, we alone, listen to what we hear; we alone interpret what the words mean. Our interpretations are pebbles in a pond of our own making, ripples that disrupt, or are disrupted by, the surface of our own consciousness.

My understanding is a dangerous view of this most fundamental intercourse; yet history, in a collective sense, bears me out.

It is not so much words, their classification, categorisation, annexation, seclusion, and exclusion of true communication that I love, but their failure in what they, or we believe, they achieve.

We tell stories – all of the time. Truth, as Geoffrey Bennington locuted in his inaugural professorial lecture, is the sight of a fish flashing in the water: to capture is to kill: to glimpse is sufficient.

Remember to Take a Big Breath Before Diving from the High Board

2009-05-09T14:43:00.004+01:00

On Novel Racers, LeatherDyke UK has posted on the difficulty of completing a novel. The loss of ‘oomph’ as you come into the final straight.

Coincidentally, mon pote, Stuart and I were discussing this very issue recently. As he pointed out, it is a familiar problem for artists and artisans of every hue and, as I commented on Novel Racers, it is the equivalent of la petite mort, the apt French description for an orgasm and a death, the ending that is both desired and feared for the very fact it is the end. (If you are wondering why all the Froggy references, Stuart lives in Brittany.)

Ma grande mort couramment is stage two of my book, the edit. I have read enough and know enough to recognise this is where the hard work is done. All I have achieved so far is to string together an outline story. Now, it needs crafting.

The assembly, the chipping away at the marble block to release the shape within, has taken over a year – yes, far too long – and has been completed in three hundred words here, five hundred there, at different times and in different moods. So the whole needs to be buffed to arrive at a consistency of style and tone. Holes need to be filled. The structure requires careful surveying to ensure the end product is sure footed.

The temptation is to celebrate the final sentence of the work as is and declare it finished. It would be a fatal mistake. Yet, the thought of delving back in is frightening. Re-writing one sentence leads to more of the same, as changing one statement will have a Newton Cradle’s knock-on effect. It won’t affect the storyline – that is firmly established – but…

It has to be done. I want this novel to be as good as I can possibly make it.

My dearest wish is to have four weeks locked away somewhere tranquil and scenic, with no distractions, in order to give my full attention to the edit. And pigs might fly. And have flu.

Exhausted or Triumphant?

2009-05-05T11:28:00.004+01:00

At 1.00 p.m. yesterday - Monday, 4th May - a book was born. Author is tired but well. Book needs some TLE - tender, loving, editing.

A Little About a Lot

2009-05-04T07:26:00.004+01:00

You don’t have much to report when writing every spare minute.

I am sprinting for the finish, much in the manner of Jon last weekend at the London marathon though without his style.(Congratulations, Jon. Don’t do it again. It exhausts me just to think of it.)

I have written 6,500 words since Wednesday.

I can comment on my computer screen. I have been staring at it for hours. It needs a wipe. Also, it has developed a worrying flicker. Do computers suffer from palsy in their old age?

Rant, Pant, & Marketing

2009-04-28T15:45:00.008+01:00

I started to write a post the other morning that was very rude about people who compiled lists. You know the sort – Twenty-Three Ways to Wash Behind Your Ears. They irritate me because they are a gimmick much beloved by direct marketers. The number is a lie. It infers a precision to what is about to be revealed. Everything you need to know is here, it promises; we know because we counted.

I don’t like lists. Unfortunately, they work or they wouldn’t be so out and about and counting the number of steps it takes for them to get to work. Forty-Nine Steps: All You Need to Get to Work.
What bought on my early morning, it’s too early for me to be polite, it’s about time someone said something about this, rant was the imminent completion of my book, Only the Gulls are Content.

It’s going to need marketing. Read Julie Korzenko’s article on the How Publishing Really Works blog. (At some stage, I shall have to tell Julie how advertising really works. To quote: ‘You’re telling a friend about a commercial you like, and when they ask, “What company was that for?” you say, “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”’ – How many times did I hear that when a copywriter? I shall have to count.)

That small gripe aside, she makes many sensible points that we wannabes will need to address sooner or later.

The most inventive and relevant piece of marketing I have seen has been for Caroline Smaile’s works. First came the map thingy for In Search of Adam, then the pure genius of The Black Boxes gizmo. I would like to claim credit for the latter but Gary might come to Brighton and slap me with a wet fish. (A short anecdote: a mediocre copywriter, a colleague in the same agency I was then working for, stuck a commercial for Cadbury’s Amazin chocolate bar – directed by Ridley Scott; slogan: It’s Amazin What Raisins Can Do – on his showreel. When challenged, he, having had nothing to with anything, defended himself by saying, “Well, I was in the room at the time,” i.e. the time when someone else came up with the slogan. On that basis, I believe I can take credit for the Black Boxes gizmo having been in the same country at the time, the design of Concorde and Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.)

So back to challenge of marketing Only the Gulls are Content; as Julie highlights, repetition is important. (I trust you understand I am talking about my book, Only the Gulls are Content.) Presently, I am doing the strategic bit of defining what needs to be done. Long experience teaches me the more time devoted to this phase, the one of stapling down precisely, without numbers, the potential audience, the reasons why my product might appeal and how I may reach them, in other words, the tighter I make my brief, the more creative will be the solution. (Ball-crushingly obvious, but one that may make one squeak on a more piercing octave.)

I have a feel for what might be a good idea. I sense it drifting on the wind far above my head, much like a gull - now I come to think of it, much like a gull as in Only the Gulls are Content.

The process brings back memories of my youth when I could smell a good idea but knew to reach out and grasp it prematurely would be to crush the butterfly. A good idea needs to be allowed time to alight before being snared.

This is not the idea, and maybe something I will do anyway, but I am thinking of giving away a limited edition of the finished drawing, of which these doodles are the inspiration, with the original as first prize.Gulls and bondage: spooky, but not half as spooky as the finished work will be. It will be full figure and something to frighten the grandchildren with. But don't be spooked, there is no bondage in Only the Gulls are Content. It is a pastoral novel of love, romance, sweaty palms and long sighs - all in full view of the governess.

Amy! Katie! Grandpa's coming! x

Pant, Pant, Pant

2009-04-23T07:41:00.003+01:00

The end of the first draft is a mere weekend's writing away - unfortunately not next weekend as I am busy with guests and fings. Nonetheless a weekend and maybe, possibly, perhaps, it will be finished in the intervening days.

Today is Amy's birthday. Four years old! Happy Birthday, Amy.

(St. George's day, Shakespeare's birthday - and the day he died, but let's not dwell on that.)

Eclecticism

2009-04-16T07:08:00.004+01:00

I am not a great football fan in the sense of one who sways with scarf extended between hands in the stands singing songs badly out of tune. That said, I do enjoy a good game and the match the night before last between Liverpool and Chelsea was one of the best. It was skillful, passionate and respectful with the added bonus of eight goals. My son-in-law, a Chelsea fan, is happy. (I was secretly rooting for Liverpool.)

I went to London over Easter to see my girls and granddaughters. Amy had no insult to hurl at me this time, but young Katie seems to have taken a shine to me as evidenced by this photograph taken on Sunday when the family was assembled at Sue-ex and Richard's for lunch.

Finally, a doodle.

Finally, finally, 1,000 words written yesterday between two shifts at work.

By Zeus!

2009-04-10T09:38:00.001+01:00

I haven't been able to do much writing this week, which is really frustrating, as I have had to work more shifts than usual.

However, given the deeply engaging nature of my job, I have had the time to ponder upon the best way to structure the final chapters of my book. So that's been a bonus.

While thus locked in thought, cogs whirling, the grey matter throwing off enough light to illuminate a small city, it struck me that the basic plot of my book could have been construed by Euripides or Aeschylus, it being a simple tale of love, self-sacrifice, revenge and murder.

CHORUS: How dare you compare yourself to Euripides or Aeschylus, David? For a start, you only studied ancient Greek for one year and failed miserably, whereas they spoke it fluently.

The basic plot is, needless to say, heavily disguised, so readers may well be surprised by this claim. All I ask is they wait until they have finished and digested the whole book before passing judgement.

CHORUS: You need to finish writing it first, idiot.

Not Suitable for Children

2009-04-06T04:05:00.010+01:00

As should be the case for every writer with aspiration, I have been considering the topic of my next book, and, yes, it is going to be about SEX! All, and exclusively about SEX.

SEX, SEX, SEX.

Not your red rose and champagne, not your erecting smooth columns in moist valleys sort of sex, but sex. Sex as in confrontational, as in language for the inarticulate, for the articulate, as in what the fuck is sex about sex. (Excuse the language, but sex brings forth unacceptable language and difficult emotions.) I wish to separate the physicality of sex, which we all understand, from the desire, which none of us do, the latter being an enclosed world of complexities and needs.

I have been talking about sex with daughters, an ex-lover and with my ex-wife's second husband among others, and, despite its exploitation by advertisers, despite the pressures of the commercial world, despite what we believe we understand about sex and, especially, the status bestowed on it by peers, church and society, our individual understanding remains intensely personal and foreign. (Quelle suprise.)

There is the animalistic need for sex, for procreation and the purely physical requirement of sexual relief; there are also the layers of mystification about the act. Even though we are animals, we do not fuck as animals - or, to contradict myself - we do but find that simple act difficult to accept. To do so requires gift-wrapping. It is the gift-wrapping and the reasons for it that I wish to explore.

I'm So Excited (Sung badly out of tune)

2009-04-04T08:14:00.003+01:00

I had a good day yesterday. Not only did I write 500 words, which is not bad for a working day, but made the important decision while at work to go for the finish.

My concern has been I would not hit my target of 80,000 words. Thinking about it yesterday, I came to the conclusion that the story itself has to dictate its length. If it is shy of 80,000 words, so be it. Also, because of the way it is constructed, it will certainly creak if pushed beyond its comfort zone.

So I know what happens from here to the finishing line, it is just a matter of writing it.

I can't tell you how exciting a feeling it is to see the tape ahead.

Just Keep Rolling Along

2009-04-02T08:28:00.005+01:00

Because of my disruptive pattern of work, odd shifts at odd times, I shape my week to leave me as much time at the weekend, or my version thereof, for my writing. Nonetheless, I find it difficult to settle into a pattern of writing. Just as I achieve it, back I am to the disruptive pattern.

Pourtant, c'est pas un germissement, c'est une pipe.

My point is once I find I am on a roll with my writing, it is best if I keep rolling; keep writing.

Example:

Last Monday I wrote approximately 1,000 words, Tuesday I wrote 2,500+. Wednesday I was back to shifts and struggled to write 150 words.

I am probably very boring company when writing, (I’m probably very boring company when not writing – let me say it before you do), my head is elsewhere, but ideas are spinning and the process of writing is reduced to setting down what I have in my head on to paper, or screen. I find blockages, doubts or hesitations recede. The momentum helps carry me through.

For instance, I wrote the best part of a chapter on Monday devoted to a scene I had not even planned. While writing it, an uninvited voice kept whispering in my ear that it was irrelevant and didn’t move the story along.

The voice was wrong on a number of counts:

It describes a situation most of us will recognise and so helps the reader identify with the situation of a protagonist who is less than sympathetic.
It marks the start of the final downward spiral for the main character.
It allows me to develop the relationship between two characters.

All of these things I had intended to do at some point; however, while pondering on possible routes during the course of my working week, my imagination had become bogged down in more and more prosaic or predictable scenarios.

The process of writing magically gathered up my intentions and delivered the solution in a manner I had not expected.

Doodles

2009-03-28T08:31:00.013Z

You will be able to deduce for yourselves from these doodles executed while at work how fascinating I find my job. They may also reveal unfortunate traits in my psyche. (Judging by the middle section, I am a frustrated architect of tunnels.)

The first I call duckadoodle, the last cockadoodle.

I invite you to name the rest.

When Nerves Attack!

2009-03-26T08:37:00.004Z

Strange, the closer I come to finishing the first draft of Only the Gulls are Content, the more nervous I become and the more convinced I am I have written a pile of poo.

I haven't been helped by technology. The file for chapter seventeen escaped overnight and returned corrupted - that's Brighton for you. Fortunately I had saved an earlier version; nevertheless, all the work of the previous week had to be re-written last week. And of the thousand words I wrote over the weekend, six hundred will have to go into the recycling bin - in the deathly phrase favoured by political commentators, they were not on tune.

I've never been one to climb every mountain, but I have heard tell the last hundred feet are the hardest. Or have I just made that up?

This attack of nerves is familiar. The closer I come to end of any project the more apprehensive I become the quality of my work is just not good enough.

Is it just me? Is it time to visit someone in a white coat?

All Change

2009-03-21T23:33:00.004Z

Caroline was kind enough to post a comment on my last post in which she drew my attention to the importance of rules. (Caroline is an artist who, to my expert opinion, is one of wonderful talent. Caroline will be embarrassed to learn I have downloaded all her pictures and use them as my screen savers in alteration to Gauguin to savour when I am trying to write.)

So to rules: rules, of course, are there to be broken; however, in order to break rules one must first understand the rules that one is breaking and, therefore, to what end one seeks to break the rules. If one does not, there is only chaos and nonsense.

Rules are not an imposition created for arbitrary reasons in order to discipline individual thought, but have been developed over the centuries through man's contemplation of how the world is. (I employ man in the traditional philosophical use of the gender to refer to all of humanity - not as a sexist generalisation.)

Man's understanding of the world is in constant flux, so ideas of its representation in writing, painting and music, traditionally, and now in film and video, are also in constant flux. Nonetheless, there remains a conversation with the past that great artists recognise, acknowledge and profoundly disagree with when it comes to their own representation of the world. Their works are a counter-argument and, in recognising the paucity of previous reasoning, nevertheless, respect the fact it be an argument worthy of contradiction.

If we look for a man who sought to destroy the tradition of thought, we can do no better than look at Descartes. Despite his claim that he was going to start from the beginning and re-write the understanding of the world, an understanding that proves so radical it still resonates in all the arts, he cannot, indeed, it is impossible for him to break free of the assumptions that motivate his thought.

So it is with any person living in any culture in any age: we are steeped in assumptions about how things are and how they should be from the breast. We can and should question, fight and disagree with every received opinion; equally we should recognise that in our arguments we are operating from foundations that remain invisible to us.

As writer, artist, film-maker, poet, environmentalist, politician, or anyone who seeks to change the world, we will only succeed if we understand why and what we are changing - in other words, the rules of the existing world.

Words Putting Order in Right

2009-03-17T11:01:00.008Z

As my confidence in what I am writing swings more wildly than a yo-yo clutching a bottle of vodka, I take an increasing interest in the blogs of agents and publishers; my two favourite being How Publishing Really Works and BubbleCow.

Jane of HPRW has posted on a Queryfail Day: a day-long Twitterfest. It's purpose was to advise writers why so many submissions fail.

I have followed some of the links in Jane's post and I am amazed at how stupid, arrogant, naive - add your favourite pejorative - wannabe writers appear to be.

The difficulty with writing is that too many people believe they are capable of becoming writers. Of course, it is possible for anyone to write; however, the ability to stab the correct keys on a keyboard to assemble a sentence that is grammatically sound does not make an individual a writer.

Writing is an art in the same sense as painting is an art.

Again, anyone can make marks on a blank canvas but unless you have a feel for form, colour, texture, shape, balance, and line, you can spend the rest of your life daubing canvases but you will never be an artist. Great writers are sensitive to the colour, texture, shape and structure of the written word. They understand the possibilities of what can be achieved on the page and how it may be achieved.

Writing is also a craft. I believe you never stop learning as a writer and anyone who wishes to become one must approach his or her task in all humility. The material we deal with, words, are infinitely subtle in the effects they can realise; however, they are also very fragile objects, their precise meaning protean and elusive. (If you don't believe the latter claim, I invite you to read the Oxford English Dictionary, which apart from being a volume of definitions may also be understood as a history of words and the change in their meaning over the years.)

Our intuitive understanding of words is that they point directly to the object, i.e. when I write 'rock', it sums up a transcendental image, one which we all understand, of the thing 'rock'.

Of course, it does no such thing. Excluding the possibility I could be referring to the motion of rocking, the seaside stick of rock, or rock and roll, but am referring to the geological rock, my elder brother, a former teacher of geology, would then ask me to refine my reference; did I mean igneous, sedimentary or the metamorphic, and further did I mean granite, basalt, sandstone, limestone, et cetera.

When I employ the word 'rock' all I do, in fact, is point you, not to what the object is, but to what the object is not. Remaining within the geological field, by using 'rock' the reader will understand I do not mean pebble, sand, gravel, sediment, etc.

The word is a single brushstroke on the page that gives the vaguest impression of what the reader is looking at. The craft of writing is first to learn and understand the techniques one must employ to create the pictures one hopes to create. The art of writing can only be realised once one has mastered the craft.

Returning to the topic of this post, those who astound me most are individuals who are, first, so misguided as to think themselves writers, second, confuse the notion of writer as being someone who is an ill-disciplined creative firebrand, an individual who, therefore, doesn't have to follow the rules. Consequently, they cannot be bothered to read the guidelines for submission, or any of the advice readily available on the Internet, and then are surprised their manuscripts never get read.

Party, Party, Party!

2009-03-15T09:56:00.004Z

Don't you just love parties?

David went to a dinner party last night with daughter of V. Famous artist and completely misbehaved.

David and alcohol are such a good combination.

David is fearless in his opinions after a glass or two. Or ten.

David upset other people because of his fearlessness.

David feels no remorse this morning because other people should have more sense than start the evening with a vodka martini.

David is a bit of an arse when it comes to parties but, by God, he is value for money. The question being, of course, the currency you deal in.

I have just been told that not only am I a pain in the arse but proud of it [which I'm not] but I do recognise the fact I cannot stop being me, i.e. a pain in the arse on certain occasions, particularly when alcohol is present.

So who am I to be someone I am not?

This is Not a Post

2009-03-13T08:30:00.004Z

I am not blogging at the moment because I am writing so much I am in danger of melting my keyboard.

My daily routine at the moment is:

Morning:
Wake
Listen to Radio 4 news headlines
Coffee
Catch up on blogs while drinking aforementioned coffee
Write
Depart for morning shift

Afternoon:
Return
Kip
Read
Write
Eat

Evening:
Depart for evening shift
Return
Eat
Write

Weekend routine is similar with the evening shift being replaced with a bottle (or two) of wine.

Last weekend I wrote 4,000 words. So I am not blogging at the moment. And this is not a post.