AA

Doc! I've got a serious problem. It's with my writing see... I... well... there's several things really.


In order to overcome our weaknesses, our shortsighted endeavours and our verbosity, we need to face them and learn to overcome them. It's a shame I have so much trouble in that regard.

So, let me stand up and say, for the record and the group, I am an alcoholic... er- anti-brevite. I can't help myself. I seem to write only for me, and I get lost in the scene. Maybe I should break it down so that we can all see just how superficial my writing is:

1. Pretty plates
   
   Here's a term pointed to by Solvejg regarding Exposition. In my case I laden my magnificent castle of a plate, with all its shimmering shell-like adornments, raised parapets, and hanging balustrades, the glazed windows overlooking the table edge and the conical towers that point skyward like spears, with a bean. One, single, bean. And that's my plot. A bean.
   
   Personally... I blame Solvey ;) No, it's half-an-half. I needed to learn to write beautiful descriptions. It's just that I now need to let it go and use it sparingly. I suppose I'm always too busy writing for myself - I fail to see that I will be returning to these particular locations again, and because of the way I've filled out the first scene, there will be nothing left to describe. Of course, there's also the problem of no interaction between the character and location - this surely has to be my biggest sin.
   
   This eeks across to the literary quality of the piece (which prolongs reader pain, elicits confusion and closes the book). I have to, have to, have to throw away my pretensions of writing literary YA. There's a time and a place. It isn't now.
   
   
2. Lack of character interaction
   
   I never give my characters enough to say. They pretty much serve the basic need of the scene and little more. We don't get a sense of character, we don't learn anything about the wider world/scenario, just what is going on at that particular moment - and this in spite of some character template generation.
   
   
3. Stuck in the scene
   
   And yet, despite the above, I hang the entire scene on masses of pretentious description (it's not pretension when it leaves my brain, I assure you) because, specifically, there's not enough to fill the scene and last a good number of pages.

At the moment, my previous chapter looks like a fluke. I must concentrate to avoid my consternate.

Writing from the Heart

I haven't written from the heart for so long I have forgotten how. Much of my writing in the beginning was automatic, was characters interacting, taking action, talking, fighting, evolving... but that all changed the day I realised I couldn't write proper like what real writers do, and over the recent years I've yearned and pursued a better way of life - resolute description that is fresh and new.

Alas, I have come unstuck. What I've been concentrating on has been the editing, the second stage after the initial draft in finished, and yet that has been before or while I have been writing the first draft. I type away for a paragraph and then go back and edit, re-edit, re-edit ad infinitum until I think I like it (for the night). I never move on and though the descriptions have (recently) become blessedly punchier I'd not realised my mistake - I've been writing from the ego.

If you're coming from you ego when you write, you're missing the magic and music that appears from your deeper self. By being willing to reach down into your unconsciousness, you'll give your fictional characters greater dimension, complexities, and human qualities (warts and all).

... says Rachel Ballon (author of Breathing life into your characters).

This is important for more than simply the reason of character (though that is primarily why I have submitted to picking up a book on how to write - I must do this more often). The first exercise in the book takes the reader/writer down memory lane and asks that you write for 15 minute with feeling on a moment in your life when you experienced great emotion. Feel it and write it... simple! And powerful, since what I wrote is in the moment - it may not be spectacularly written (I haven't greatly edited it or poured time in perfecting) - is filled with so much stuff that writing with the ego does not generate:

They befriended us first with pats on the back and smiles and group in-joking. We already felt on edge since these older boys were just that: older. We were still fairly young, on the cusp of moving from primary to secondary school. In comparison these boys were much broader, far taller, even than me.

We had ridden our bikes down to Millpond for a laugh during the holidays, just to go that far and take in the lake, free of adults. Now, with the group of 3, or was it 4, lads closing in around us, we knew we were out of our depth.

The questions are easy at first: non-threatening and no reason to expect the unexpected. It didn't take them long to lead us off the path and drag us, bikes as well, into the bushes. Thick and green looking from the outside, they'd seemed impenetrable, but once inside amongst the twisted trunks and roots it was big enough for them to hold us and the bikes and keep us surrounded. We were so close to the path and yet too far from help. We'd seen no one else on our travels.

That's when the fear kicks in. The two of us, on our own, far smaller and outnumbered. What did they want?

We couldn't just run and leave them with the bikes. What would our parents say? Were the bikes what they wanted?

One of them was speaking: threatening words that I can't now remember, but we'd look at each other, panicky, feeling their heavy hands on our shoulders, wrapped about the crossbars of our bikes.

Be quiet!

What did they want? What would they do to us?

We lied right from the off, pretending to be cousins. One lived in the town, the other had come with his parents for the day. There were adults waiting for us. There was no reason for the lads to believe otherwise. We were family members, not just friends. If only we'd said they knew where we were and were coming to pick us up!

I was crying. My friend, silent. Pensive, of course, but stoic. He always was. Stronger in body and mind despite being shorter than me. Brave like dynamite. I've never been so. I have too many fears.

I cried quietly, so afraid of being beaten up, or worse. What could they do? What did they want with us? I told them I suffered from migraines, pleading that it was a serious one. It could only get worse and I had to go home... be gone. It hurt so bad. We had to go so that I could take my medication. Our family would be waiting.

They were understanding. Their threats and strict faces were so understanding and let they let me go. They turned my bike around for me and passed me out through the wall of green. I was back on the path, making my way back the way I had cycled in, back to freedom. I was shaking and balling. My face was hot and red, my cheeks soaked. And as I walked away up the path I trembled and realised what I had done.

I had betrayed my friend to them. I had left him behind with thoughts of myself.

I had forsaken him in their clutches, alone, to do with as they pleased. A knot that had sat in my stomach double-knotted itself as I looked on myself and my cowardice and kept on walking. What had I done? Surely we'd been safer together? What had I done? I kept on walking.

He came screaming past me. His hand was clutched to his ear and he was cursing and crying. He went tearing away from me in tears, yelling that they'd hit him. I saw that he had left his bike behind, that they had stolen it and paid him with a punch.

I threw down my bike at that thought. I swept away the cowardice, my fear for my own safety and with him gone into the distance, I turned around. I lurched into life and charged back into the bushes, fleeing from my cravenness. I had betrayed my best friend and let them hurt him.

I ran screaming into the bushes, cussing and throwing my fists. I gave no thought to myself. He had taken a punch for me and his bike was forfeit. That wasn't right. I charged into their lair to lay waste to them or take my share - whatever it took.

But they were gone.

I pushed both bikes along the path, followed only by my shame. Eventually I found my friend on a bench. He'd failed to find help. We were still alone. We never saw those boys again and in time our friendship passed away also, though the shame lives on.

Hopefully you can see that 15 minutes of writing without thought to place, character names, or fear of failure, evokes a far stronger piece of writing than anything I have produced recently. Perhaps I had better go back to writing my first drafts and then tying them up afterwards?!

It is certainly possible that we can write from the ego and create something beautiful, but, I am beginning to believe that in order to write more broadly, more freely, and with the possibility of calling on a wider vocabulary (or making the writing appear more verbally, the way great writers can move between subjects, subplots, descriptions and back again) free writing is the way I must go.

Criminal Conviction - Perjury

A party or witness is usually required to give evidence on oath or affirmation. To lie having sworn an oath or affirmation could result in criminal conviction for perjury.

So begins the House of Commons 2003 paper on Employment Tribunals. It’s in the second line that I find the knot in my stomach turn to cold, hard stone.

There is a chance, a future in which we can move forward with victory in our strides. But, I have to wonder, at what cost?

You’ll have to forgive me for this, I need to rant, and blogging it is a good form of counselling that helps work out the issues. If I don’t, it’s going to eat me up like it’s done before and I just can’t afford the counselling on top of my physiotherapy. Anyone know a good psychiatrist?

This morning whilst I was borrowing my parents’ portable fridge to replace mine that had broken at some point between yesterday morning and this morning – sigh! Warm milk for breakfast – Dad couldn’t stop himself from showing me the latest documentation he’d received from the NSPCC.

For those of you not in the know, my brother was unfairly dismissed by his previous employer (my current employer) on the grounds of having had a relationship with a student – big whoop, it did the local newspapers and nothing more (for which, in hindsight we are thankful – having seen the Daily Mail spread of the former Head of Year 11 from the same school for her own student-affair we decided in was bad enough that local people could make up their own minds about what was going on… let alone nationally. Trust me, give the people a titbit of information and they can run miles with it, just take the McCann’s for example).

Anyhoo, although we were successful and proved that my brother was unfairly dismissed, we couldn’t prove wrongful dismissal. Our angle was that the senior staff had prior knowledge of the relationship. Why is this important?

Simply, because if the school (as in the senior staff) had prior knowledge and did nothing about it they a) were putting their students at risk, and b) were condoning the act, therefore removing responsibility from my brother.

We could prove that as high up as the deputy headteacher had prior knowledge, despite a key witness refusing to come forward because of still having to work with the deputy. We couldn’t prove the headteacher had prior knowledge. And since they’d not allowed the deputy head to stand as a witness (to avoid perjury), the evidence we did have – two witness statements – were deemed irrelevant.

SIGH

So, why is the NSPCC documentation important?

My brother was suspended in July 2004 on grounds of inappropriate behaviour – this is a small aside that assisted in us achieving unfair dismissal. The relationship didn’t become a part of the investigation until April 2005 (9 months after he was suspended, 7 months after the student involved was interviewed). My brother wasn’t interviewed about the relationship until April 2005, and yet the school had officially (we thought) known about the relationship as early as September 2004.

That didn’t rub with the tribunal – they didn’t care about technicalities such as that. We thought it was important that the school had, in knowing, tried to hide the fact in the hope they could dismiss him with the original charges – which fell flat on their face through contradictory and superficial evidence.

Again it’s all by the by. What’s important about the NSPCC documents is that the headteacher made it clear she had no prior knowledge – certainly not before the student’s interview (September 2004) – and yet the documents prove she did.

This therefore is perjury, and perjury can carry a criminal conviction.

Dad’s going to the Crown Prosecution Service regardless of what new evidence he finds, but this helps prove the local authority have been lying, which is good. We’ve already got enough evidence about their attempt to crucify my brother and have him put on the sex offenders register using illegal and false documentation – we were lucky that the Government rejected the documentation – but this again was an illegal act upon which we can take vengeance.

The bad thing is that this doesn’t help the healing process – what we’ve all learnt to live with, locked up in a cancerous lump of three long wasted years dealing with the case, is now resurfacing, and all the bitterness and anger associated with that and what I feel was betrayal and abandonment by the people I thought were my friends is back in my throat – all these reasons why Laura and I will be seeking to move away from Bracknell as soon as our courses are done, in the hope we can start afresh and finally leave it all behind.

But, what good is revenge? For none of this will help my brother now. It may make us feel for a short time like we have been fully vindicated, but what else? What purpose?

I still have pangs of anxiety as the memories return: of representing my brother against my own employer, attempting to get the truth from possible witnesses (no easy feat since you can’t subpoena anyone), dealing with the shock that so few people are prepared to speak, that they’re all far more interested in getting on with their lives, questioning the head teacher at industrial tribunal, or of watching my father fall apart under the pressure and finally telling him that I would represent my brother in court instead.

Nothing will remove those now. They have stripped the good humour from me and made me bitter, turned me cynical. Hate pumps from my heart and it won’t let me live my life.

Learning to live

When a friend asked me to go with her to a Spiritualist Church I’d no idea how eagerly I’d take up her request. But, like a fearless explorer in a new world, absorbing all that I could in my search to find greater meaning to my life, I had no idea where that path would lead.

“They believe in Jesus Christ, but they also believe that through spiritual healing and clairvoyance we can communicate with people in the spirit world,” Sandra told me.

We shared an interest in spiritualism and the paranormal and whilst Sandra was a lapsed Christian and I an agnostic, unable to align myself with the regiment of religion, we were both eager to find out more. I knew that orthodox Christianity believed spiritualism was just another aspect of occultism, but I’d paid to see a psychic medium in the past (who told me I’d have twin boys in five years time – that was almost ten years ago, and I’m still waiting – and that I was allergic to cola – a revelation that has changed my previously phlegmy life) and I liked to think I was fairly open minded. It helped that my parents let me come to my own conclusions about religion.

There would be a service of hymns and prayer and then the guest medium would work for an hour with the congregation. It sounded like a great opportunity to get a free reading, and I relished the thought of returning to my parents afterwards to deliver a message from my grandfather – he’d died the year before and spiritualists believe it takes roughly a year for the deceased to try to make contact – some woolly notion that the spirit needs time to recuperate. Fingers crossed!

It was mid-October, a Thursday evening, and the weather was typically autumnal; leaves the colour of ochre glued to everything, the north wind rattling bones and window panes alike. Sandra drove, allowing me time to worry. I’ve always hated the unsteady process of finding my feet with strangers and that was amplified by my concern about what this evening would involve. Will they indoctrinate me into a secret society? Will I be torn away from friends and family because they don’t share my new beliefs? Will it turn out to be nothing more than tea with a bunch of old folk discussing auras (like a group of sober hippies) or clichés about meeting tall dark strangers?

Of the two of us, I was the more sceptical. I’d never trusted the ritualistic nature, self-love and blinkered world view my Christian-practicing cousins exhibited, and of all the times I’d tried praying as a child I simply couldn’t make myself believe that there existed a great entity called God whose ego was so small he needed me to worship him. The flipside however, was that I’d always had an innate fear of death. During primary school, after Mum and Dad had put me to bed, black thoughts would cloud over me in the darkness and if I wasn’t worrying about death I was struggling with the concepts of what existed before the Big Bang, and what would exist when everything ended. My parents spent many a night attempting to consol me, though nothing can wrestle the weight of the universe from a child’s shoulders. How do you pacify a child that has realised he doesn’t want to die, and yet can understand that living for eternity isn’t much better? More often than not only my crying would exhaust me into sleep.

So there we were, sat amongst believers; a different kind to my cousins, but believers all the same. Both looking for deeper meaning and answers to life’s bigger questions. The hall was plain looking and it had an antiquated seventies feel that I found stale and stifling; as if somehow its furnishings being of a certain time period meant the mindsets of its inhabitants were stuck there also – I’ve felt this of most contemporary churches I’ve visited. It could have been a community hall were it not for the copious bouquets of flowers and the wood dais upon which the church leaders sat.

After the service the guest medium took to the stand. Millions of people watch the likes of Colin Fry on television or pay to attend “evenings with a psychic” in the hope of receiving a message from the other side, or hearing from deceased relatives. The guest medium at the church was no different. I couldn’t help but be in awe at the work he did, the messages he gave. It is a unique experience to watch comprehension float to the surface of someone’s face because they can accept the medium’s description of someone or something close to them, or see their tears as a long lost memory is recounted before the keen listeners. I thought it was wonderful.

I didn’t receive a message myself that night – I had secretly hoped – but when Sandra drove me home I was filled with a sense of well-being, as if I had a place in the universe after all.

We attended the church every Thursday thereafter, staying after the service to join a psychic circle held upstairs. A creepy room lined with dusky wallpaper. It housed nearly twenty old-wood chairs and an empty wardrobe – allegedly used for transmogrification and the suchlike. Six months in and during a conversation with one of the church leaders I was advised I would become a trance medium. I was elated that one day I would be able to wield such a skill and have concrete proof of the continuation of the human soul. Except that I don’t believe it to be true.

Sandra and I joined another psychic circle where we developed skills of psychometry, tarot reading, meditation and mediumship, and for a good year I found harmony with the fear of death that had plagued me so. I described people I didn’t know and had never seen, detailed imagery and gave messages to people that made them truly stop and listen to what I had to say, before thanking me with shocked faces and shining eyes.

After a year however, while Sandra’s abilities seemed to grow exponentially, I found that mine floundered. All the imagery I had seen in my head I’d plucked out of nothing, like the proverbial rabbit pulled from the empty magician’s hat. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d made it all up – if that’s all we were doing. In Victorian times many magicians started their careers giving séances and cold reading an audience. They used the Barnum effect to elicit emotional reactions that spoke more about the audience’s willingness for communion with spirits to be true than the reality. My psychic group reminded me that that’s what clairvoyance is – seeing – just as clairaudience is hearing spirits and clairsentience is sensing. It was suggested I’d merely hit a plateau in my learning. I wasn’t sure. I began to feel like a fake. When the group meditated I fell into a sleep, rousing only when the others came out of their reflections. One by one we’d tell the others what we’d seen, heard, felt; only I couldn’t. I had nothing to tell.

Eventually I left the group and the church. My search for meaningful meditation was over.

It dawned on me as I worried over my failing belief that I had spent too much time trying to communicate with the dead. I realised that in focusing so much on what comes after, I was giving no time to the here and now. To this day I believe that whilst there are charlatans, there are many more doing good work, who give others hope in the afterlife. But, I came to understand that whether or not any of it is true, whether or not I really communicated with the dead, is irrelevant. I believe that I have only one life to live and I believe that I owe it to myself to live my life rather than seek out a cheat or shortcut. Who wants to know what’s in store? Or that they’ll never win the lottery? I’d rather live in hope.

To my adult mind the notion of death and endings is still frightening, and there are still some nights when I wake suddenly with those dark clouds collecting above me. My heart thuds with a surge of adrenaline, my unconscious mind imposing my fear of the end of all things upon me. I get up and go to the loo, or I have a drink, but the storm refuses to shift. My pulse races and time seems to be streaming by, everything in flux, yet my body and mind move so very slow.

But I don’t turn my thoughts to spiritualism or the theory that spirits watch over us. I don’t concern myself with the belief shared by millions across the globe that death is just a curtain behind which the secrets of the universe shall be revealed. Because, still, at some point there will come an ending, and no amount of self delusion or faith is going to prevent that.

Now though, when I feel the depression take hold, I turn over in bed and watch my wife sleeping beside me. Now, when I think of the end of all things, I listen to her soft breaths; watch the flutter of her eyelids as she dreams. I kiss her forehead in the darkness and I consol myself that whatever or wherever that end is, we will all go to it, together.

Gift from the Gods

In Ancient times, back when I was a lad, we used to be polytheistic. Back in those halcyon days when you were encouraged to slaughter your goat in front of your kids for the sake of some good fortune, there was always a likely chance for the gods to smile on you.

Not these days.

The muse is a fickle creature, and personally, I believe that since she is a figment of antiquity she fears God might smite her for being a part of that whole polytheism movement - you know, worshipping multiple gods! How pagan is that?

Anyhoo, she comes and she goes, and I'm getting rather fed up with it all. T'other week I was being commended for my screenplay pitch and the opening to my new novel, and today I'm battling with the first couple of hundred words of my YA/Children's novel - which I keep returning to with renewed (and failing vigour)... and it's killing me.

It's not like I've met the main narrative yet. I'm still playing around with the tone, a swift one/two page opening to set the scene of what is going on behind the scenes - though I don't want it to be long, because I have to leap into the narrative proper.

So, here I am, going round in circles, wondering to myself what's important in this description? The reader has to understand: there is a book in a room with no doors. The book is made from stone. The pages turn on their own and something unnatural and unseen is scoring words into the book. That the room is cylindrical, that books line the walls, stacked upwards, and there is no ceiling. Just a light that glares down from infinity far, far above. Sounds easy doesn't it?

I've spent 8 hours on this, and here's where I stand, 238 words of exhaustion:

… and the page shivers.

A sliver of polished stone, the width and breadth of a man’s chest, floats up from the book and curls over. Paper-thin, as if paper is all it is. In the half light the movement is barely visible. And no sooner has the page smoothed itself in place than the scoring starts anew, the screech of a dagger dragging through stone.

Nothing appears to move.

The book, fashioned from basalt like an ornament upon a tomb, lies open at its middle. It is clasped in obsidian claws that protrude on an arm of volcanic rock from the cobbled floor. Reptilian talons of black ice. Surrounding both book and pedestal is a single, unbroken wall of book-shaped bricks, a tower that stretches up to a circle of moonlight high above. An oubliette without entry or exit.

There is no one here to turn the page; no one to scratch the noise into the chill air. Yet, it sounds as if someone is doing just that. Something unseen is chiselling at the book. And, inscribed into those stone pages the words flow ceaselessly…

… stands the witch, Penthera Discordia. She pulls the iridescent, feather-bound book from beneath her robes and bears it before her. Her lips move and the incense thickens as a spell forms in her throat. And then she tears open the book as she might her own ribcage to free her heart…

Seeded

So, I entered FeverPitch didn't I, and got turned down... boo! So, I'd put it into my head that I haven't learnt anything and am in fact a loser - thoughts which Agent Cox suggested might be detrimental to me actually getting anywhere. "Don't hold yourself back," he said at the beginning of the week.

So it was with shock and amazement - I had to leave my desk and take a toilet sabbatical before returning to the screen - that I received this e-mail from the FeverPitch team:

Hi,

As you are a finalist in the Fever Pitch competition, are you able to send me your most current cv/biog as Julian Friedmann, the pitching expert, would like to see them, if that is ok.

Yours,

K. M******d
Festival Co-ordinator
Screenwriters' Festival 2007

www.screenwritersfestival.com

Holy crackola! Top 10 out of 600! I was certain this was a mistake, so I phoned them... and sure enough I was right - they'd e-mailed me by mistake.

I'm guessing that they wanted to rub it in! With my heart still in my mouth I began to cry, but then the nice man somehow remembered me. What? Out of 600?

He said: "Yours was the one about the guy in the coma wasn't it?"
Me: "SOB. Yes, I've just started NAW this year, and it was a screenplay I'd developed for my screenwriting module."
Him: "Oh, yes I remember that. We sent that with the top 20 for the final selection of 10. I liked the idea and your pitch."
Me: "Say that again?"
Him: "You got into the top 20. We had to send them off for a final assessment before the top 10 were picked. So, chin up. Out of 600 applicants you came within the top 20."
Me: "Oh Christ!"

What the hell does this mean? Crikey, I'm starting to do something right. Now I just have to get my head round the fact that God is trying to tell me something rather than rub my face in it.

Yay for me!

FeverPitch

Ever get that feeling that the plot of the latest blockbuster or TV drama is pretty lame?

Well, that's what the subtitle asked of this year's FeverPitch, one of the competitions going on at this years Screenwriters' Festival over in Cheltenham next week. Just pop in your pitch and synopsis by... last Friday... and they'll pick out 10 people to go along to the festival and pitch to the crowd. Channel 4 were looking for sci-fi related stock this year (film and TV). I entered, but go nowhere (as usual) *SOB* Probably came 599 out of the 600 applicants, and only besting some poor sod who was applying for viagra online and simply e-mailed the wrong address.

At least they replied promptly - though I can't share the e-mail because I deleted it immediately before I had a chance to mope over it, wondering where I went wrong... maybe it actually said I'd been shortlisted!

Anyhoo, I pitched the screenplay series I'd been perfecting for my NAW module. It's interesting how having submitted my screenplay and analysis last week, all done and dusted, that I rewrote the 150 word synopsis a further 5 times for the competition!

Here it is... 25-word pitch:

What if the world’s coma victims shared a single consciousness that existed at the crossroads between life and death?

And the 150 word synopsis:

Edward Baker’s unaware he’s in a coma. He’s reliving the day of his car crash not realising he’s sharing his consciousness with the minds of other coma victims. Instead he’s focused upon being selfless; a trait that once endeared him to his pregnant wife, Claire, but now drives a wedge in their relationship. Edward blames himself for his parents' deaths. His guilt has driven his impulse to take on the concerns of others including his business partner, Mark’s, double-cross of a dangerous businessman. Suffering brief déjà vu-like visions of the future and haunted by a bloody reflection of his real-self, Edward struggles with his responsibilities, but he can’t be everything to everyone. When he tries to prevent the kidnapping of a Russian woman, Alisha, he is hurled into a life-threatening struggle to uncover Alisha’s secret about the crossroads between life and death and the true power of the Dark Machine.

Solologue

So, getting somewhere/nowhere (delete as applicable) with my monologues, I posted to my tutor:

I've tried to pull out all the self-referencing statements ofhumiliation and knowing and specifically opened up the opening and the discovering the weapons. I'm still a little fuzzy on it being mono-modal though because I'm not sure if there are still any moments that could be bettered through showing rather than the fictional descriptions of self.

So, I believe these two point might still be outstanding on the current attachment:

1. You still occasionally shove the narrator's mental state down the audience's throat instead of thinking about how it can be shown through words and actions.
2. You need to take the opportunities to evoke place whenever they arise- it's still rather mono-modal, stuck inside this very unusual
   head.

To which he's replied (postively - yay!):

Yes, better, but you diagnose the issues well! Try not to give the gameaway every time you take the story on to the next stage ('That's where I discovered Grandpa's firearms' - 'firearms' makes the narrator soundlike a policeman, and we need the suspense of finding out what he found). Look for other examples of this narrative overloading - there are a few.

Lots still to do in the mental-athletics of my mind. Though, looking back over the weeks of input I've had from my tutor I start to wonder, wouldn't this have been easier without the middle-man? My tutor could have written it better on his own. :)

Breaking the Monologue

I'm really beginning to struggle now with the reworking of the monologue. I can see for the most part thos obvious sections that stick out, and tell the audience how the protagonist is thinking, or his mind works - which would be fine in a written form, but isn't in this instance - I've cut and pulled quite a bit, but am left with dregs and moments that I feel work but also I feel might not work, or still address the same issue of being too hung up in my protagonist's mind.

I'm hoping, out of the previous list of problems my tutor picked up on, that the following two are the only ones remaining that I'm having difficulty addressing:

1. You still occasionally shove the narrator’s mental state down the audience’s throat instead of thinking about how it can be shown through words and actions.
2. You need to take the opportunities to evoke place whenever they arise – it’s still rather mono-modal, stuck inside this very unusual head.

So, I need to be more clear on when I am doing the first and when I'm not doing the latter - which is interesting given that usually I overwrite my descriptions and lose the pace. Now, I'm supposed to level up on that - when I'm already over my self-imposed 1,500 word limit. We'll see what the tutor says.

I'm too close to it, haven't worked on the other two and it's already the 7th May. There's no time left to complete this and get working with some Drama students in time for the second week of June. The Arts Festival is a no-no, but I don't feel I can just let this slide - despite the nag of my screenplay, I've got that to write, edit, review, and a 2,000 word essay to write on it before the end of June - I need to understand and show my tutor I can use given crits appropriately without giving up.

Pulled, and returned

Faced with your own blog, the possibility that you only write on it to feel special, and a slap in the face about your lack of responsibility over what you've posted... leading to realisations over copyright/plagerism, and gah! Just what it must be like to read about yourself in someone elses blog - despite them not naming you.

So, I deleted the copyright material and pulled the whole blog... for a day!

Is that all? Is that enough to make reparations?

How can you continue to blog with an awareness that now, you're being watched?

I guess you just do. With thanks to, I'm glad to say, my friend whose work I showed no respect to, who told me to lighten up over my writing... and everything I guess. Shadowed also by Solvey, a writer doesn't give up, a writer struggles through the phases of depression, picks themselves up and gets going.

Now, I can't help but sound self-concious, but I am addressing you the reader, for once. If you want to write, you get on and write... sound advice, I've much needed.

Now then, onwards with the Monologues!

It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!

I was going to write my woes on here about failing to make another grade (Litopia's latest compo), but other than simply logging it here, I'm going to let this one slide.

I think it's fair to say that those of us who've been at Litopia longest, and those who have come with far more experience are now working on instinct and inspiration - take Osc's assertion he was one drunk skunk when he wrote his winning piece... hang on... DRUNK? It took me three solid weeks to write mine, he did it in a couple of hours... drunk?

Sheesh!

Anyhoo, with what I've just said, we now reach the realms of subjectivity - and I suppose that's why I don't want to bother with bigger compo's, such as the Bridport short story prize.

But then, what am I turning down here? Surely it's not just having to pay money to enter a compo... surely, it's turning down the opportunity to submit to an agent, with my next book, should I ever write it. All I require is inspiration now, and room to manoeuvre inside my own ability.

Zoiks! Just read your comment there Es! Where you been man? Thanks for the positives, and your nice thoughts. I hope you are well?

So, the next step is to move on. With this all in mind, it's time to pick up those books on Monologuing, finish reading Dramatica, write my screenplay, and redraft my shorts for the monologues, and get on with the rewrite of my novel... erm, all after Congo has finished on Film 4 - I wouldn't watch it, but for the fact I last saw it in the cinema, and I love to get all nostalgic. Here's to the future... now, where's my Malibu?

Failed to make the grade - Addendum

I'm over my rant now, I feel some vindication - though I won't say why.

What's more important is the emotions that spring from rejection - they're self indulgent, all-encompassing, depressive anger.

Why is that important? In order to harness an emotion, I guess, we need to understand it. In order to show a reader/audience the whys and wherefors, we need to have a true account... certainly so that we may understand its workings ourselves.

Bitterness. This is the strongest part of the emotion - the basenote, if you will. It clings in there throughout the other swinging emotions. How the hell could I be passed over? I need this! I'm there, really I am. I just need that little extra push, damn it. How can they be better than me?

Sadness. The midtones. Whilst not as overwhelming as the bitterness, or as strong and sudden as the highnotes, sadness brings on the real depressiveness. I want to throw in the towel. I'm never going to be as good as I want to be. I'm not up to the level that I'd hope I am. What's the point, when I'm passed over and I don't even understand what I'm missing.

Anger. The highnotes. This comes and goes the most, like a moth to a flame. It has me thinking that I should jack it in, complain, tear something up. Actually throw in the towel.

But, as I said, in the light of a new day, everything seems different. Life goes on, and so do we. The key to overcoming this is not just the understanding of new information, but the feeling of being understood and reassured, which takes me back to my discussion during Counselling Skills, now over a year ago, that people just need and want to be heard and understood.

Failed to make the grade

Feeling, suddenly, angry-upset-depressed about not making the grade to do the first masterclass at Birmingham with author Jim Crace. Apparantly they'll be doing some prose stripping (which sounds nice), but out of 13 of us who applied to do it, only 8 got through, and 5 of us have to go swing - which is fair enough...

... except it's not. I was certain my 300 word grovelling laid out my needs sure enough, so why didn't I get on. That's not a question. Why should it be?

I always reach these moments of rejection with immediate emotional response - and it's not to do with the person giving the bad news (though it is to do with the rejection itself). Questions bubble up from the super-heated froth fizzing around my brain - what was I missing? How could my 300 words have been wrong? What's wrong with me?

The response include thoughts on the losers' needs not being attuned to Jim's purpose: "creative spark, imaginative input, for example, which is not what the prose stripping sessions are actually about." Which wasn't what I need help with, so the problem is with the way I come across - and again, I doubt it was the humorous(less?) last line.

Wo what does that mean? 8 people will get to look in depth at what they need to do to spruce up their work... and I can go hang.

Self indulgent swear word coming up... FUCK IT.

And then... and then... the point is that as part of our Professional Development module we need to evaluate our masterclasses. And here is one, and I'm going to miss out on it. Jeesh, and there was me thinking I'd paid for this.

Shell-shocked

Well, I made the 230 round-trip to Birmingham and back last night... whah? Where am I... Sorry, keep dozing off. That was one hell of a journey (both ways). It took 3 hours to get there thanks to the damn roadworks on the A404 leading to the M40. I was stuck for 45 minutes - crikey!

So, I get to the UCE dead on 6, I race to the loo, run to the classroom, find it in use by other people, search the corridor for signs of life, slink back to the admin office, find the note that says go to room D226, and spend the next 5 minutes batting my head against doors and windows (like a blue-bottle) until I get there.

... stagger in, still in my shirt, tie, glasses, shaved head, hands-free kit strapped to my ear, bag on shoulder. I was greeted by Nicola but no one else. They all had their heads down, reading (I'd discover their portfolios). No one smiled, no one spoke... Er, is this the same class?

So, I sat down, looked around... no one looks back. I literally have to stare. Is everyone as knackered as I am? (Maybe they all read my Pattercake post and think I'm an egomaniac!) Anyhoo, it was kind of a functional night, I got 62% on my portfolio with nice words said about my press release and 3,000 word crit re-work (though I let myself down on the Fanny and Alexander pieces - d'oh! Yes, I really could have put in more effort - but honestly, I didn't realise we'd be marked like real degree students... I'd better start taking this shit seriously). I can't remember much of the evaluation, because Nicola took it back, but it's kind of good. Though, back to my old course days at Reading college and I'm desperate to know where in this league of 18 I came (how much did my F & A pieces let me down?)

62% is good (it's a 2:1) but I should be looking to 1st standard now. I'm pissed that I didn't put in more effort. Gah!

Well, we got down to a little bit of workshopping, had a presentation by Nicola about how she feels workshops should work - including (I thought) a little dig at my usual re-write of someone elses work. (Check my Pattercake post). We chatted a little, discussed the pros and cons of the piece she showed us and then all promptly got up at 8pm and left for home... at least, I did. Others went to the pub. Pah! I can't stay there for an extra hour for a drink, I'd never get home. Downside was I wouldn't catch up with them all, and now the group (down from 24 to 18 already) will be factionalised even further - some people will defer to September, others will go onto the other course.

So, I'm already losing buddies - especially the guy who most stood out as being a kindred spirit, and giving some guidance; he'd deferred damn him, but then he was going to do the other course anyway. What's a guy to do?

So, back in the car, left Birmingham at 8:20, and home by 9:50. How'sat? An hour and a half! And I didn't have to fight with the winds that battered me on the way up.

I need sleep!

Plus/Minus

+ Had yesterday off to do some DIY (got dad round)
- Took the whole day to fit one door
+ Managed to re-grout the shower
- The grout is too old, and I realised this morning that it refuses to dry.
+ I'm on the NAW course
- There's confusion over the times (no longer will I need the whole day off on a wednesday - it's 6-8pm... meaning I drive for 2 hours, stay for 2, drive home for 2) Knackering
+ Great reception about my short story for the Litopia competition:

I really like it Richard - I particularly like the evocative nature of the story through the use of smells (lavender, burnt toast, coffee, the sickly sweet smell that pervaded the mortuary. mothballs etc) and the close examination of human actions (stroked my fringe with his soft warm fingers, watched a tremor pass across her furrowed brow etc) and most of all, your use of language is brilliant (the rainfall of tears in my hair, it hung around the church spire spitting angrily, dribbled the rancid flesh back into the bowl, swinging from the bannister; a wraithlike wind chime etc). The final moments when you realise the truth about the father and the devastation the daughter must feel are very well written with just enough detail to evoke sadness shock and empathy in the reader.Have you been reading 'Perfume' by Patrick Suskind?


Love the story Richard. I LOVE "The sky was forced..................etc and
the "Swans" paragraph. Overall, I think the "surprise" at the end makes it a cracking short!

- Solvejg is entering the competition this time round
+ I've got chiro in two hours time
- My neck aches so much I'm certain I've been using my head to bash through walls.

Staring down the barrel of a 1 day weekend

Up and down. Just been to the dentist - lost my gold award for perfect teeth. I'm brushing too hard and whittling back my gums creating a lovely horse-like grin and a sensitive blush thanks to hot and cold food. Wow! Thanks, me.

You try to do everything right and what do you get? You're just scrubbing your gums to spite your teeth. 'They'll never grow back,' says the dentist... so, cheers for that.

On another note, I just worked this saturday (or rather spent the day reading), and now that my colleague is off this saturday I might have to work then too... and then... and then... I might be starting the NAW course (if none of the other students have read this blog and hate my guts) and will have to work every saturday until the hereafter.

I will have to cancel my every arranged weekend away. Shucks, this sucks. Humpf.

AND, I'm going to have to see the hygenist (though it can't be that important because I have to wait until May).

At least I'm not going to the chiropractor until Thursday. SIGH. But then I'm feeling so very tight... toight, like a toiger!

Ups and downs.

Crime Writers - Event

Just completed the write up for last night's author event. Boy was that a drag! Either those guys were dead boring, or, as I fear, I'm now chock-full of authorly wisdom that none of it means anything beyond the rhetoric it really is. The biggest lesson to be learned from any of them is that they all do it in different ways, and different things work for them, and they each have different readerships.

I'm dead depressed for more reason than that though - someone made a complaint about someone from my team the other day. None of us know who it is yet, and our line manager has feigned ignorance as to who specifically it was aimed at. What we were told was that this person chose not to take a grievance out against whichever one of us it was that offended them, instead choosing to claim they'll take the borough to court!

Now, we've heard, through unofficial sources (nothing is ever done in the open in this place), that the case is concluded. Huh? But we still don't know which of our big mouths got us in trouble and worse, we don't know who this crazy person is who took offence. Worser even than that (yes, worser indeed) is that whatever offence was taken (whether real or imagined) now sits in the collective minds of management, a black dot, ready for use at the most opportune moment.

Leaving us in limbo.

And in between times I'm trying to muster the interest in writing - my short story developed for my portfolio has stalled as I move it up to 1500 words. Solvejg's voice is in my head: 'You really need to distinguish yourself now."

How for God's sake. How the hell do I train my mind to work that way? It refuses.

Now, I'm considering rewriting my children's story, in response to Peter Cox's request for more children's lit ( or rather just a point that he is getting known for it).

And, then, I've decided to get a couple of books on poetry out - but do they talk to me? Hell, no! Poetry sucks! It's pretentious bull... of the kind I usually write. Jeesh! Say what you mean.

Focus

I am drifting now between worlds. My life is diverging along separate paths at the moment - at work I am pretending to support the computer systems whilst worrying over whether or not the corporate IT team will come and steal my work and boot me out (they're head of service is the evil cow I had several run in's with during my brother's case). On Litopia I'm feeling less and less inclined to join in, there's nothing happening, and I can't be bothered to invest my time in critting other people's work. Then, of course, there is the new course, the NAW... and I've been moodling on the uni's website quite a lot. But, that's because hardly anyone else is. I guess they're all hurriedly attempting to complete their portfolios!

Well, I've succeeded as far as completing my portfolio for the qualifying module - and I've just got to post it off next week. My ego is telling me, "Hey, despite your angst about getting it done, it was real easy." My problem is that unlike my usual writing, I've thought (deep in my subconscious) that the NAW doesn't need me to exert myself as I have done on Litopia and in pursuing an agent.

It's not that I'm great, as we all know I'm not. Certainly my mentor (Solvey) points out, I've managed to leap (finally) into good writing, but I've yet to distinguish myself by doing something that makes the difference, that separates me from other "good" writers.

After my crits in the NAW workshops I feel I let myself down by entering something I wasn't entirely happy with. I'd been told enough by the Litopians what needed to be fixed, and my NAW's said (amongst other things) a lot of the similar stuff. And there was me assuring myself I was going to stand out from the crowd. Don't get me wrong, it was nice of my tutor (Nicola Monaghan - author of The Killing Jar... I've yet to read it) to tell me that I've got great prose (in places), and the work was clearly highly polished, and also for Charles Bennet (Doctor and poet) to compliment me on my articulation and ability with critiquing my fellow students, but I was hoping to get a few more pats on the back from my contemporaries.

Argh! Curse the ego! I know, I know! It's a good thing to be cut short and keep us from spontaneously combusting with self-love.

I'm not really feeling the love at all - for the second time I've critted someone from the course and the response has been a pleasant: "Your thoughts on my work are nice, but I don't see what you're complaining about, and I'm not going to listen." Which is nice.

So here I am, having finished the portfolio 1 week early - yay - and I'm not going to invest any more time in it, because I somehow know that it's enough just to complete the work to get on the course. Though it'd be ironically funny if it didn't.

So, what must I focus on? Solvejg says I need to stand out, and asks:

• What are you interested in?
• Wonderful, precise characterization?
• Peculiar, disjointed sentences?
• Exaggerated violence?
• Juxtaposed interactions?

Aiye! How do I do that? I'll be taking my "good" 1,000 word story used for my NAW portfolio and add in 500 words... of something... amazing... that'll make it stand out. Which just points to the fact that I'm not going to invest everything into the course! Which is crazy, but it's not going to give me everything I want. I'm heading in a slightly different direction.

Must concentrate, must give it my all... but I'm only going to be getting a little out of it - let's hope not.

NAW - Day 3

3rd day was a lot better - I've sat and chatted with most people now, and just got to know Sophie Ward, who's also on the course - actress in things like Heartbeat, Peak Practice and played Elizabeth in the Young Sherlock Holmes movie back in the 80s. I had real difficulty not blabbing, 'I fancied you when I was a kid... er... I still do... er...' Fortunately/unfortunately her partner is also on the course. Anyway - in the morning we had Barry Turner - writer of nonfiction and editor of the Writer's Handbook, and chairman of the NWA. He gave us a really uplifting discussion on how to go about applying to agents, what to write, market research etc... (He looks like Peter Ustinof's brother and wore a spangly bow tie)... I mean, it was all stuff that we've covered over and over in Litopia - like a lot of things we've done, but you can't complain when someone like Barry says: 'If you need any help, any questions, then please drop me a line.'Er... okay. How's that for networking?It's crazy in a way, when you consider how many creative writing courses there are across the country, and this is the one all the pro's want to support. The big thing is that other courses focus on a lot of English literature related dissection of text, essays, and the stuff that takes you away from writing. This one is geared specifically towards writing in some form or another.So, in the afternoon we had two people from Murdoch's News International - there was an almost audible gasp from everybody at hearing that news. Christ! News International is funding the course. We've sold our souls to the devil. Faust! Faust!But, again, the chief publisher for the Times was really interesting, and again offered her services. Everyone is under the impression we're going to be the almighty - the NGA - who did the press release that ended up in the Guardian came too to discuss festivals and funding for us to showcase our work in Birmingham. It's crazy and it's scary. I came to write my novel, not create some perfoming arts venture, floating down the river with banners adorning buildings and my words printed upon them!Between you and me. We're not all that special at all. Our writing really does shift between the good and the bad - the newbies and the established amatuers who just need that kick to sort it out.Blogs are good fun - I'm going to paste this text into mine - save me writing more. Maybe remove the bit on Sophie being gay though - she already said she scoured the internet for info on her fellow learners - which irked me! Seeing as I felt kind of guilty for doing it to her.

NAW Begins

Well less than a week now before I begin the course. Still 500 words left to right before submitting to my course tutor and my mind is on other things... namely the lower back pain that I'm worried is the return of Shingles. I had an itch down in the empty pus sack on my back where I caught it previously some 13 years ago and it got me worried. I wouldn't be able to go do my course if I caught it. Suddenly I'd be Mr Infectious. Certainly, the friends I'm going to stay with would be in danger - their daughter and the unborn baby especially. Guilt versus my need to start moving my life forward.

Someone prodded my kidneys, got me to bend in different directions - looks like starting up ballroom dancing against last night is using muscles I don't normally associate with the couch - ow. Got to drink fluids and keep moving, suck in that gut and think about the next short story... and the last 500 words.

How do I keep motivated on that front?