My Stupeflix Video

The airship of the mind.

How do you see your writing process? No, I don’t mean in terms of ‘it’s my life’ or ‘when I write I do my research first’ sort of thing. I mean if you were to visualise your self and the thinking and editing you do, what would that look like?

This is what I see. 

When I write, I build this huge machine. It looks something like a steam driven chariot with a lot of type-writer/air ship/fighter plane in the mix. There’s certainly a seat, possibly a cockpit, definitely an engine which either purrs like a sports car or wheezes like a lawn mower. There’s a great number of levers and pulleys and pedals ones has to push to get it to do anything, and often the same sequence of moves – pull red lever, stamp on third brake, flick first five switches on the left – results in a different action each time. It’s constantly springing oil leaks, bleaches steam or shedding vital parts, I’m forever having to stamp on one of the fifty seven brakes and leap from the cockpit, dangling at impossible angles with complicated tool to make fine adjustments in the teeth of a gale. Other times we hit smooth road, and for a brief, wonderful time we cruise along and the miles flick past, only to discover I’ve taken a wrong turn and have to reverse. Then the big end goes.

But slowly, bit by bit, it wheezes less, the rumbling, burbling engine is stripped and oiled and starts to tick over; the paintwork is primed and ready and the wings take shape. One day I shall be able to don my goggles, lock down the windshield and build up enough speed to take off into the wide, blue yonder. But not yet, there’s a suspicious ticking noise in the left compression chamber.

My first published novel 'My crooked little sister' a dark and twisty thriller set in the swamps around New Orleans, is out now published by Not So Noble Books - if you'd like to see how well that particular creation flies.

The self assessment grid.

I had my professional assessment in my course the other day. I’m studying to be an antenatal teacher with the NCT, and in the January before you graduate, you have to fill out an assessment grid all about yourself. If you get all seven or above, and you want to start your teaching career, then they book your first ever course in July. I mention this because of the assessment grid we have to use - twelve points we reflect then mark ourselves on out of ten. My tutor marked all my grades up from 7’s and 8’s to 9’s and 10’s and I’m set to teach my first course in July.

However, looking at the self assessment grid I got to wondering if it might throw some light on the whole writing lark. Seeing as I’m in reflective mood, let’s take a look at them-

Self-motivation 

Or when writing, what is motivating your characters. You have to know, the reader doesn’t. Or rather, they need to find out, and it might not be what you or they think it is when you start. It’s so much more fun when what we think is the motivation turns out not to be, or rather that the character start off thinking they want A, then discovering they actually want B, and perhaps even that it is A after all. 

You could also tick the box here for actually doing some bloody writing. There are a billion unfinished books out there, but who cares about them? A writer who doesn’t write is a bit like a dancer who doesn’t dance, you kind of have to do it to be it.

Self-awareness 

How well do your characters know themselves? How well does the reader know them, and how? You can have a character who likes to think that they’re respectable, dependable and reliable - but who goes on to prove that they’re anything but - especially if they’re maintaining their innocence all the while - the classic unreliable narrator. Or, have your character know the truth of their nature and try all the way through to hide it because the world demands it of them - until one slip is their down fall. They key is that you as the writer must know your character absolutely, every beat of their heart and every inch of their dreams - then decide how much of it you choose to share with them, or the reader.

Respect for colleagues 

This means other writers. They’ve all done it before you, you are standing on the shoulders of giants so do them the courtesy of treating the craft with respect. 

Reception of feedback

Ah-ha! You will get feed back. Some of it will be good, some of it will be bad, but all of it should be considered. Everyone wants someone to pick up their first book and say ‘why, this is wonderful, please collect your booker from the bran tub outside the door.’ They’re not going to. What might appear to be bad feedback, or hard feedback, is hard to hear, but once you’ve got over the pain, use it. Pain is there for a reason, pain is there to tell us we need to do something. You may decide that all you need to do is ignore it, you may decide that you need to jump six feet sideways - but think of it as something to use. Better you spend another twelve months working on it, than get another twelve rejections.

Ability to work as a team member 

This I’m going to use to say that you have to get all your team players working toward the same goal, your book. You need to be up on the plot, you need the characters to work, you need to paint the scene, you need to keep up the pace - think of all these things as your team and don’t let one take over from the others.

Reliability 

If you have a deadline, meet it. A deadline is a gift, not a burden. Just be glad you’ve got one, if you ever do.

Responsibility 

You’re creating a world, whether or not it’s a fantasy epic or Guilford in January, so do right by it. If the rain in your world is purple, it’s purple - so make sure it’s purple all the way through.

Accountability 

You are getting into the minds and hearts of your readers, I hope. Just be careful what you leave there.

Time keeping and punctuality 

Ok - stretching the point a little but timing is everything in writing as much as comedy. Always be aware of it, when building tension, when wrong footing the reader, especially when telling a joke. If I might load a second point onto this one, I’d also underline the importance here of reading things out loud. Everything, every word of what you think is your final draft must be read out loud to ensure that it is readable at all. You’ll hear at once if the timing is off or out, especially when it comes to dialogue - and yes, you have to do the accents and the voices and walk around the room in the guise of your characters.

Professional appearance 

How you present your work is crucial. There is a professional form you should follow when submitting. It’s not a question of people being awkward, it’s not a question of them nit-picking - it’s the way things are done. If you don’t do it, they will simply have an easy reason to throw your manuscript into the slush pile. There are lots of good books on the subject of submissions which are worth the read.

Confidentiality 

Don’t give things away lightly. This is going to be my exposition rant. You need to know everything about everyone in your book and everything in the world of your book, then write as if your reader does also. Don’t explain anything, don’t take a moment to set the scene - just be in the world of your book. As your characters walk through it, they will cause ripples in it which will turn into waves which will rock boats - and that’s your story. You know what I’m saying here, don’t you? Show, don’t tell.

Social media

There’s lots out there, some of it good, some of it bad. When you’re writing, turn it off. When you’re promoting, turn it on.

Now, how does your writing stack up, from one to ten? Go on, give it a go, and hopefully someone will come and mark you up as well.

No spam please!

The opener is seductive - 'Ever thought you book could be a film?'

Well, who hasn't? Especially when your first book comes out and your friends read it and love it, before it's properly exposed to the wrath of strangers - then you sit back and start casting it in your mind and even wonder about googling a few actors agents - well, we can dream!

So, I thought I'd enter this - and let me say at once that I'm not saying this competition is anything but above board and good fun for all concerned - you load up an extract from your book, and if it wins, the movie deal is yours. Fantastic - so I duly loaded up my extract though not quite clear about the rules and what I was meant to do - and today I'm withdrawing.

The way it works is that everyone who enters had to tweet about every one else who enters, the more tweets the better, and every time someone re-tweets your entry, you get a vote, and the one with the most votes will be made into a movie if the funding can be raised, and we all get a lot of exposure as a result - great!

Well.......not for me. You see, I'd be quite happy to tweet about the extracts I enjoyed reading, and to spread the word about the competition and to promote a kick-starter program to fund the film when the winner is chosen - but not to decide the winner.

Because all that does is show you who's spammed the most people on their twitter feed - not who's written the best book. And let me stress here, I'm not saying that I've written the best book, but I am saying that if I am to be judged, I'd like it to be on my writing and not my ability to send hundreds to tweets. I may not have a lot of twitter followers, but those I do have I don't want to keep on tweeting stuff at them merely to rank up points on a screen, because that's like awarding a prize to whom ever can click a clicker fastest in an hour - and frankly, I don't follow people for that, but for what they have to say.

Now, give me a shortlist to read and I'll pick my favourite and tweet about because I have something to say on the subject - but just to collect tweets like cake sprinkles? No thanks - I think I'd just annoy people more than anything.

Good luck to them though, and I hope the movie makes it into reality.

If you'd like to see if my book would make a good film - you can buy it through Amazon in e-book form - published by 'Not so Noble books.'

My first book it out!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/CROOKED-LITTLE-SISTER-dark-thriller-ebook/dp/B00H1Y05QM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386071953&sr=8-1&keywords=my+crooked+little+sister

I have signed with e-book publishers 'Not so noble books' to publish this and hopefully more of my thrillers. This is the first, written during NaNoRiMo 2011 - and here's the blurb:

 A woman staggers into a decrepit fishing shack in the Louisiana back woods, with no memory, a gun and a bullet wound. Enter Red, a stranger in a strange place, in time to catch her as she falls.

Trapped in the sweating heat of the swamp, no car, no phone, no one around for miles, the ex-solider offers her refuge and the name ‘Margarita’. 

Night falls and cabin fever sets in, ripe with intense visions and confession. In the small hours Margarita discovers a cache of hidden weapons and a plan for revenge on Red, once married to her missing sister - but who’s plan is it and who’s its real target? Deeper they go, embroiled in a dark game before all the players, both real and imaginary, have fully revealed themselves. 

A huge thank-you to all and everyone who has helped me with this - you are amazing SXX

Everyone loves a bad guy....

Hands up, I confess, I love a bad guy. Not in real life, in real life I love a great guy, but in the wonderful world of fiction I certainly do.
Personally, I like a bad guy with something of if not a soft side, certainly a little rational. There needs to be a moment when we like him, or we sympathise with him or hell, we even want to be him, just a little. Bad guys get to do all the things we can't, and most of the things we don't want to. We've all had moment when we've fantasised about offing an ex, a boss, a rival, and bad guys gets to do that. In fiction at least, we do like to be given a reason why the bad guy is bad, we like a back story - it's very hard to justify a bad guy who's just bad because, well, he's bad. And that's part of the appeal, unpicking a bad guy to see how he was made, to see if we could do better, or worse, than him.

Hero's have a hard time of it really, they have be heroic and they have to be moral, and as a result so many of them come off as a bit preachy, a bit dull and well, a bit humourless.

The best of both worlds of course is the anti-hero - the bad guy who underneath has a heart of gold, or the moral centre, the one who at the very last, saves the day, often at the cost of their own happiness - it is a far far better thing I do today, than I have ever done before - and so forth.

The reason I am thinking about this is that tonight I am working up to the first scene where my own particular bad guy makes his entrance stage right.

He is going to do, is doing, terrible things off stage but when he appears, my characters have no prior knowledge of him and so he must appear if not innocent, certainly ambiguous at first. But oh, we the reader will suss his him out from the start, we'll catch the scent of sulphur and the darkness which hangs around him - but should we? Is that the correct way to do it - should he be totally bland and inoffensive from the start?

He could.....but he's not going to be. Because although he's the bad guy, he's not the only bad guy. There are two others, one a dashing but troubled artist who really is going to do a number on my main character, and the other?

Why, he's so evil we'll hardly notice him at all. Until it's too late. And he's an example of the real and most pervasive form of evil - that of the banal.

That's what makes him a really bad guy. 

I'd love to hear about your favourite bad guys, your own or ones you love from fiction.

Foundation lessons

I am writing. I am currently working on the WIP, which is set in Weimar Germany and which has been rather sticky from time to time. Of course, life throws tar patches in your way when you can't help but drop the word count, but mostly I do solemnly subscribe to the belief that the only way to write a book is to, well, write the book - that finessing and all the rest comes after, and may take longer, but always   after there is a draft to finesse. It may be the first of fifty, but there still must be a first.

Only, but rules are made to be broken.

I was heading down the word count freeway towards the half way point - around fifty five thousand words - when I suddenly hit a tar pit not of the real world but in the world of the book.

A far more serious road block to creativity.

The basic issue is that when I reached a crucial scene that needs my main character's mother to allow her to take a rather unconventional job, it suddenly didn't seem possible that her mother would ever give her permission. I was either going to have a huge, protected scene where my MC leaves home after an uncharacteristic show of temper which I didn't really want, or......

Or I was going to have to look again at the first part of the book.

I needed to push the motivations and circumstances backwards, so that her mother's crisis point comes at the moment the daughter is offered the job, not before as I had it at first. That way, the mother is too distracted and brow beaten to notice the lie she's being spun, and then the deceit becomes one they all 'need' to believe, and the rest of the story unfolds.

I needed to strengthen my foundations before proceeding.

This does mean going back to the plan, it means re-working and moving scenes, it means working over existing ground before heading onto pastures new - and breaking the rule. Just a little.

Because something fundamental like that must be dealt with before you go back to writing, every day, even if it's only 500 words, or 250, or a line, or notes in your plot line - but something, every day.

Today, 1600 words, since you ask.